


Blood Is Thicker

by TrishaCollins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, Complicated Relationships, Family Buisness, Get him off the bus, Lucifer got out, Season 11, The cage came out, Why not Adam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8347822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: A little gap was enough.





	1. Nothing Feels Real

**Author's Note:**

> My roommate and I are rewatching SPN from the beginning right now. Which is just bouncing around and giving me all of these ideas. Sorry for quality.

Sam had tossed his shirt over his shoulders, and the day was so cold that he hadn't really objected. Their make shift scrabble board was spread out between them, but he kept losing track of the words and Sam kept cheating by using Latin, which he thought was the opposite of fair.

"You ok?" Sam asked quietly. 

He drew himself deeper under the heavy canvas, staring at the board. "Yeah. Just cold." His mind was racing, chasing down rabbits down the trails of his thoughts. 

Sam shifted, making another non-word on the table. 

"I can't tell if I am getting stupider or you're just messing with me." He muttered, shuddering and leaning forward to peer down at his letter cubes. 

"Latin is valid." Sam defended, shuffling his letter squares around. 

"I still think it's cheating. Who knows how to spell Latin words off the top of their heads?" He said quietly, tucking his chin inside the jacket and pull up his shoulders with a tired sigh. "You ever think that maybe our sense of time is so screwed up, it's only been an hour?"

She fidgeted with the letter blocks. "I try not to think about it." He replied, uncertain. 

"I do too. But then it starts itching, and I have these breaks between being broken and my mind tries to find these pieces of sense." He drew a shuddering breath, knew he was rambling, but couldn't stop himself from saying the words. "And then I just start wondering how long it has really been. If Dean has even gotten off the ground yet while we're considering that this is how we're always going to be from now on. If our bodies would even be cold yet if we were dead up there." He drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, staring into the board. "How does time work in hell? If we got out, we could come back before we even fell."

Sam reached out, rubbing his hand up and down his leg, trying to be reassuring. 

It was a single island of heat that made him want to crawl forward and try to burrow his way into Sam's skin until he could be warm again. "I just wanna go..." He whispered. 

"I know, Adam. You've got to hold it together, alright?" Sam's voice was gentle. "Can't let them break you."

He shuddered. "I think they have already." When he slept - if he slept - his dreams were full of dying, breaking limbs, and screaming. His dreams were made of solid impacts and unwanted touches that drew him further and further from himself and humanity. 

Sam's voice was abruptly just next to his ear, arms tight around him, body warm and solid against his. "Shhhhh." 

He was shaking, every part of him coming apart at the seems, tears in his eyes, breath rough and uncertain. Sam's body was like fire, heat and life pressed against him in a way that was almost too hot. What if Sam started burning him, like Michael did? What if every touch started to hurt? 

Sam brushed his hand over his hair, rocking him gently. "It's alright. You're not alone, it's alright." 

He tried to uncurl, but his body had gone stiff and unwieldy, the cold had sunk into him, into his bones. "It's a lie." He whispered, voice small and lost in the darkness of the cage. "It's a lie. You're a lie." 

Sam made a confused noise against his shoulder, still holding him tight. 

It was a memory, he thought, a memory of warmth.

"It's a lie." He repeated, squeezing his eyes shut, drawing himself down small. As small as he could.

When he opened his eyes, Sam was gone. Because he was gone. He had to cling to reality, the little scraps of it he had left to him. Sam was gone, something had taken him away. Lucifer had howled and screamed and chased him until he felt his heart burst inside his chest.

Sam was gone. Sam was no longer in hell. 

He still had the shirt, pulled taunt around his shoulders. But it no longer smelled like Sam, it no longer smelled like anything. 

Michael was kneeling in front of him, head tilted, eyes nearly as empty as his own. "You were dreaming again."

He drew in a breath, let it go, licked his dry lips until they split and bled and he tasted his own blood. It was familiar, it was comforting. "Do you dream?"

Michael turned to face the empty pit outside the cage. "I do not any longer."

He closed his eyes, burying his face against his knees. "I want to stop."

"You won't." Michael said, voice flat, lacking even the edge for cruelty. "Until the last flicker of hope goes out within you." He turned to look at him, a spark of his old meanness returning for just a moment. "Your brothers have forgotten about you, just as my father has forsaken me. We are the same at last."

He shuddered, drawing a breath through the battered jeans. Because he couldn't fight the truth.

That last little spark, the part of him he wasn't sure if he wanted to hurry along into the abyss or feedcarefully, hold it as close as he could.

The last spark of warmth, the last bit of reality. 

"I wanna go." He whispered. "Sam, I just want to go..."

****

He was walking, one foot in front of the other, slow, plodding paces that felt like they were taking him nowhere. There was nowhere to go, he knew, had known, was always being reminded. 

Nowhere to go. No escape. 

He was walking alongside a road, a wide one, he kept catching his feet on cracks in the road. He had tripped and fallen half a dozen times since he'd arrived in whatever thought form this current iteration of his prison was, his hands were skinned and bloody, and one of the knees of his pants had ripped. The skin beneath it stung, but he had long ago lost the connection pain had to a cession of movement.

Pain was just a thing that he endured. Pain just was. He had no existence without pain, without cold. 

Something large whooshed past him at a speed that knocked him off his feet again. Red light lit up the darkness like a new nightmare and he cowered reflexively, covering his head.

He just wanted to keep walking, keep moving with one foot in front of the other. He didn't want to face them again. He didn't want to, but he also knew by now not to run. Running just made them angry, running just made the hurt last longer. It made them laugh, he hated the laughter, it clawed at his ears until they fell off his head and then it drilled straight into his skull.

"Don't." He whimpered, or he thought he might have, maybe. Was he begging today? He must be begging. He must be asking for mercy, even though he knew none would come. He shivered, pulling the battered form of a remembered protection around his shoulders more tightly. It hung, gaping, too large on his frame. But with it was the last little spark of something that might have been faith. 

Someone had given it to him, and they had meant to protect him with it. As long as he had it he was a little bit safe. 

"Kid?" A male voice broke through his panic, he whimpered again. "Hey, hey no, I'm not going to hurt you. What happened?" 

The gravel crunched as the male voice came closer, and he tried to cower further back without moving his feet. He fell, and lay cringing on the floor for long enough that it felt like a blow should fall. 

It should, but it didn't. This must be one of those odd days, the one where the game was more important than the pain. 

"Shit." The male voice said softly. "Ok. Um."

He risked a peek through his fingers, but he couldn't see much more than a shadow in the darkness. 

"Alright. Um. What's your name?" 

Name? Yes, he had one of those. Once? He had one of those. Something people had called him.

But as he searched his mind, he could come up with only a handful of names, so he picked the one that felt the least painful and the safest. "Sam." He whispered.

"Sam? Ok. Sam, can you stand up? I wanna get you in my truck. It's freezing out here. Then I can call an ambulance." 

It was always freezing, he knew that. Unless he was burning alive, he was freezing, and the cold held onto him like someone had once held him as they'd fallen. 

But he had been forced to obey so many times that his body came to standing before he could even manage to think the action through, and the man who had a gruff voice was speaking to him as gently as someone else had once reassured him.

"Good job, you're doing great. I got a heater in my truck and we can lay the seat back, so you can rest until the cops get here." The man stepped forward, and a hand touched his wrist. 

He flinched back, started by the warmth, whimpering because he was prepared for the pain.

"Shit." The man said again. "Ok that was a bad idea, sorry, Sam." A light flicked on, and he closed his eyes tightly, expecting the burning to start again.

It didn't, and when he risked a tentative glimpse, the light was just illuminating the uneven ground at his feet. 

"It's alright, kid. You're ok. Ain't nobody going to hurt you, ok?" He could see the man now, bearded and uncertain, shining the light carefully at his feet. "Just walk this way. I won't touch you again, I promise." 

He nodded shakily, and took a slow plodding step forward again. He stumbled a few times, his body felt all wrong and too big. 

The guy kept talk to him, voice soft and patient, unlike anything in recent memory. So like something in further memory that he wanted to hold onto. 

"That's it, good job. You're doing great." He pulled open the door, shining the light up into a small, narrow space that filled him with a sense of relief that was almost primal.

Small, narrow place where he could hide. He had trouble with the stairs at first, and finally dropped to his hands and knees to crawl up into the cab of the truck. There was a narrower space behind it - a bed? A bed. He thought- yes. 

He was curled up in the bed before the guy got back into the truck, burrowing under the blankets that smelled of something other than him. The guy gave an awkward little laugh. "Yeah. Ok. There's more blankets under the bed. You can grab them if you want." 

More? He checked, and found them, pulling them all around him until the numb started to slowly ease out of his hands and toes. 

He could hear the man talking to someone else, but he didn't move from beneath the pile of blankets, the safe place, nobody could see him. Warmth that was almost as frightening as the cold was seeping into his body, causing little tremors of terror that at any moment it could turn into burning, pain that lashed him until he stopped being for a few blessed moments before he started again.

And then the cold or the fire would come, and sometimes there would be laughter, and he hated the laughter most of all. 

"Hungry?" The guy asked him quietly. "There's some chips and stuff, some water in there." 

His stomach growled in answer, but he said nothing. Food was a foreign thing, thirst, he didn't need food, but he was always hungry, thirsty, his mouth so dry and empty he would break his own skin open just to taste something. But he knew that buying into the illusion was worse, that he could just wait it out and let it fade away again. 

"Yeah he's not talking much. It's freezing out there, he has a jacket but otherwise he's just in jeans and a shirt. Covered in blood, looks like he's been through hell. He told me his name is Sam." The guy was saying. "But that's about all he said. Flinched back like he thought I was about to deck him when I went to support him. He's currently bundled in every blanket I have on the bed. The clothes he's wearing look a little big on him. Yeah we're at mile marker 90. Yeah. Didn't see anything, no other cars on the road this late. Just a kid, I think. If he's older than 18 I'll be shocked. Yeah, I'll wait here with him." The guy turned around in his seat. "Got an ambulance on the way, they're going to take you to the hospital. Get you checked out. Do you know who dropped you off here?"

Hospital. Hospital was a good place, there was someone where, someone who picked him up and held him, He could almost remember the smell, the warmth, laughter that didn't hurt and filled his mind with fuzzy feelings he couldn't quite identify. 

They made him feel a bit off balance, and his eyes burned with them. 

Hospital. Hospital was safe, there was someone waiting for him there. 

"Ok." The guy said, as though he had answered a question. "We'll get you somewhere safe."

He tugged the blanket over his face, hiding himself completely from view.

If they couldn't see him, maybe they would let him sleep, wrapped in the fuzzy feeling that he could almost remember and the warm presence that didn't hurt.

***

The person he thought should be at the hospital wasn’t there, and as tired as he felt, that still chipped away at something within him.

The person who was there was nice, when she asked him to take off his clothes for her, she didn’t try to take the jacket away. She looked through the pockets, and took a few things away, but the jacket she let him keep. She gave him a bottle of water, and gently helped him take tiny sips of it when he just held it. 

She went away for a little while, and a gentle man came to see him. He spoke, but the words had stopped making sense in his head, so he found a corner of the room to fix on and let himself fade away into the furthest parts of himself. 

The man seemed odd when he did that, though he couldn’t be sure why. He touched his leg gently and then went away. 

The nice woman came back with food, and patiently fed him each little bite of it. She talked to him too, but about silly things. She talked to him about winter, and spring, and flowers. She was kind, and he wondered why she was here in this thought form. 

It must be a trap, he thought. It must be something designed to lure him into relaxing. Sometimes they did that. 

A part of him told him that he shouldn’t indulge it, it would only hurt more when it went away again. But the rest of him craved the kindness more than the tasteless food he was being fed. 

Once he had finished it, she guided him into lying down, and pulled the blankets around him, tucking them in. “Sleep well.” She told him, echoing the person he thought should have been here. 

He reached for her hand, holding it loosely in his own. “When I wake up, you’ll be gone.” He told her. 

She reached out with her other hand, brushing her fingers through his hair. “No, sweetheart. You’re safe now, nothing bad will happen.”

It was a lie, but it was such a beautiful lie that he wanted to hold it for just a few moments. He felt so heavy now, his body relaxed in ways he wasn’t sure he wanted to be. It wasn’t really responding to him any longer, but he had expected that.

When he went to sleep, the heat would take him.

At least he wouldn’t be cold for awhile. 

She kept petting his hair, which made his eyes feel even heavier, and against his will he fell asleep.  
*** 

In his dreams he ran, because walking would mean he was caught. The cold laughed and laughed when it finally cornered him, laughed until he screamed and the cold tore away his ability to run anymore. 

He could hear singing, broken hums of songs he didn’t know, whispers of his own as he tried to mask the sound. 

When the heat was inside him, his mind felt foggy and his body was distant, and the music was inside him too. 

He hated the music, but he feared the silence, the silence was full of waiting. The silence was full of trying to remember and aching and cold. 

The cold always found him in the silence. 

He woke with a start, but no sound escaped him. The room was still there, the blankets draped over him, the person who wasn’t the person he wanted but was kind was there, reading a book by his bedside.

He remembered blank books, and books that had text in them. He remembered laughter, talking to someone who made him feel safe. Something about the books, something about symbols carved into the ground. He remembered pain that wasn’t pain, a hand helping him to his feet when he fell down. 

He remembered an arm around his shoulder, and could almost remember the smell that wasn’t him and wasn’t sulfur and wasn’t heat. He bit his lip, tasting himself, chasing away the fragments of memory. 

He tightened his grip on the jacket, rolling on his side to curl around it. 

She looked up when he moved, smiling at him. “You’re awake, let me go tell the doctor.” She touched his arm gently before she left, leaving her book on the table next to his bed. 

He reached for it as she left, flipping through the pages. He was looking for the place the story stopped, because it always ended before the ending. 

But the book kept going, looping lines of text he couldn’t read, because his eyes wouldn’t focus on them for long enough. He was looking for the place where the text broke. 

The door opened and the kind person walked back inside, with a taller man who was watching him intently. 

He closed the book meekly, returning it to the bedside table and burying his fingers in the cloth of the jacket. 

“Good morning, Sam.” The man told him quietly. “I looked you over while you were asleep. How are you feeling?”

He stared at the man, confused by the question. 

The kind person walked to her book, picking it up. “Were you reading?” She asked him quietly.

He shook his head. “I was trying to find the ending before the ending.”

She frowned, looking over at the man, before she cleared her face of it and smiled again. “Well, I haven’t reached the ending yet. Do you like books? I could bring you one.”

The doctor looked down at his papers, reading over them. 

He was paying attention, though, he could see it in the way he was focused.

The question had more weight to it than they were pretending. “They aren’t right. They always end before the ending because I never finished them, so I can’t finish them now.” He told her, feeling a bit overwhelmed by trying to explain to a thought form. 

“Now?” She asked him gently. 

“We fell. I can’t have what I don’t have, and what I have is going away.” He laughed, then, though it sounded flat. “I want to go.” 

“Go where?” The woman asked gently, touching his wrist. 

He didn’t understand this game. He didn’t understand the rules. He thought he had learned them, but this one was just making his head hurt. “I want to go, Sam.” He whispered, dropping his gaze from her and staring at his hands tangled in the jacket. 

The woman gave his hand a gentle squeeze, stroking his hair. “Who is Sam?”

He didn’t respond, staring at the dirty jacket against the white of the blankets. 

He didn’t remember. 

***

The put a needle in his hand. The woman seemed to be expecting him to react badly to it, but he just stared at the tube going to the bag of fluid. 

It hadn’t hurt, really, just a little prick and an odd weight to his hand. It made him tired again, so he lay down and closed his eyes, holding onto the jacket as tightly as he could. 

He slept for a long time. It felt like a long time, it could have been no time. In his dreams he wandered an old library that was full of books with empty pages.

He was alone there, and it was quiet. 

“Adam.” A voice said gently, a hand heavy on his shoulder. 

He opened his eyes and stared upwards, into a face that he knew better than his own. Confusion washed over him, sure of a trap, his thoughts tangled in his head, around heat and cold, until he wasn’t sure which way was up and how to lock his fingers around reality anymore. “You came back.”

Sam smiled, but there were tears in his eyes. “Yeah.” He leaned down, enfolding him in his arms, hugging too tightly, but breathing was an optional function his body sometimes didn’t know how to perform.

He clutched at Sam’s arms, taking deep breaths of his scent. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t jerk himself out of this moment because it was the one he wanted. Michael would laugh at him, mock him. 

He couldn’t stop dreaming until the last of his hope died. 

Sam was rubbing his back, circling fingers against his shoulder and whispering little bits of nonsense into his hair.

He wished he could hear it, could commit the words to memory, but his mind was still latched onto the part of Sam being here, present. He was no longer alone with the other two, the ones who caught him and pinned him and made him scream. 

“Hey.” Another voice intruded. “Get him dressed, they say we can take him.” 

Sam nodded against his shoulder, gently working his fingers free of his arms. “Give me the bag.”

“He’s going to look even more like a kid in your clothes.” The other voice said shortly, but tossed him bag. 

“Yeah, I know.” Sam said, digging through the bag. 

Sam pulled out the IV, using a bandage to cover it. He didn’t ask if he could dress himself, just started doing it himself.

He thought he could have, but he was willing to let Sam do it. To close his eyes and let Sam take care of him. 

The other person had found his shoes, and the little bundle of clothing that he guessed was his, and Sam worked the shoes back onto his feet. “Think he’ll want this shit?”

“Maybe? Keep it.” Sam answered, catching his hands and giving them a little squeeze. He took the jacket away and draped it back over his shoulders, carefully putting it on him. 

He sat, silent and compliant until Sam was done, let Sam help him to his feet and leaned into his bulk, closing his eyes. 

“How bad do you think it is?” The other guy asked. 

“Later, Dean.” Sam replied, wrapping an arm around him. “Let’s just get him out of here.” 

Dean gave him a long look. “Any chance he brought Michael back with him?”

He shuddered, and Sam’s arm tightened around him, holding him closer. “Maybe. But I’m not really worried abut that right now.” 

He closed his eyes and let Sam walk for him when they started walking, blocking out the white hall where the person he thought should be there wasn’t.


	2. Heartbeat

He slept in the back of the car, face pressed against Sam’s stomach, wrapped around his waist, bare arm pressed against the small of his back, feeling the pulse of his heart every time it beat. 

It was reassuring, the beat of it. It chased some of the unreality away. Sam had been in hell with him, Sam coming back….

It made sense. He knew nothing could escape hell; Lucifer must have just gotten bored with hiding his brother in some unexplored corner of the cage. Sam wouldn’t leave him. Sam had promised. It might be a new game, but he had worked through the games before. 

Sam and Dean talked while they drove, but most of the times they just became a gentle white noise in the back of his awareness. Nothing in their tones said he should be worried, so he wasn’t.

He had curled himself up as small as he could; keeping his eyes closed even when he wasn’t asleep. Sam seemed to know when he was awake, hand moving against the back of his head even if he didn’t move.

“-I just think we need to consider it. That could be Michael.” Dean said. 

Sam sighed. “It’s not. We’ve been over this.”

“How the hell would you know?” 

He flinched a little, and Sam made a shushing noise, circling his fingers against the back of his skull. “I just know. Trust me on this, Dean. It’s Adam. Just Adam.”

Dean grumbled under his breath, but said nothing more about the matter. 

“He kept singing.” He muttered into Sam’s stomach. “Wouldn’t stop. Same songs, on loop, until they weren’t songs anymore. When he was in me, all I heard was the noise of it, the music. I hate the music.”

“What’d he sing?” Sam asked, still rubbing the back of his head gently. 

“Guys and Dolls.” He snorted. “Whole show. Said it was a classic.” 

Sam laughed a bit half heartedly, still stroking the back of his head. “Well, it is, but I imagine hearing it looped three million times wouldn’t help with things. Do you know how you got there?”

“Where?” He mumbled, not certain he understood. 

“The road, where they found you? Do you remember what happened?” Sam asked, still stroking his shoulder. 

“Just another road, knew I had to start walking.” He responded, not sure about the questions. 

Sam knew how the cage worked. How the environment shifted to suit Lucifer’s whims and passing moments of cruelty. 

Sam sighed, sounding faintly disappointed. “Yeah.” 

“Sorry.” He whispered. 

“Not your fault, ok? We’ll figure it out.”

He closed his eyes again, relaxing a bit with that reassurance. 

***

The car pulled to the stop in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t stir, because getting up might draw attention to him and he didn’t want anything to notice

Sam shifted, slowly unwrapping him from his body and guiding him slowly out of the car.

Dean moved around the car to help him out, hands settling briefly on his shoulders. “I got you, buddy.” 

He flinched away, pressing himself to the side of the car, breathing sharp and irregular. 

Dean stepped back, holding up his hands, looking more annoyed than anything. “Alright, Sam, looks like the kid is all yours for now.”

“Yeah.” Sam climbed out of the car, touching his shoulder. “Dean won’t hurt you.” 

He stared at the ground, not lifting his head. 

“Did I kill him?” Dean asked, concerned. 

“No, just a startle response.” Sam guided him forward, and he went without protesting, one foot in front of the other, going in the direction Sam wanted him to go. It was safer to just go the way Sam wanted him to go, not to think about what way he wanted to go. 

“His startle response is to go completely still?” Dean shifted, the gravel crunching under his feet as he shifted uneasily. 

“Yeah, well. Remember how long he spent in hell.” Sam retorted. “If you run, they chase you.”

“Right.” Dean backed away. “I’ll get the bunker open.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Sam was still guiding him, accepting his blind obedience without commentary. 

Sam was good at that, patient and calm when he was falling apart. He closed his eyes, letting Sam decide how they were walking. He heard a door open and let himself be led inside, let himself be eased down into a chair. 

“Beer?” Dean asked, offering him one. 

“Probably better to stick with water.” Sam said quietly, touching the back of his head.

It didn’t matter, he thought. But he didn’t say anything. 

“Beer, water. Whatever. Adam?” Dean asked quietly. 

He managed a shrug, staring down between his feet. There were books around them, none of them familiar, so he knew they wouldn’t have anything in them. 

He didn’t understand, but he didn’t want this game to end. 

“Right, both. Got it. So what do we do next? I mean it’s not like we’ve got a lot of time to cool our heels here.” Dean came back with a glass bottle, pressing it into his hands. 

He curled his hands around it reflexively, letting the cold of it penetrate the warm that Sam’s presence had wrapped him in. 

Sam gave his shoulder a solid squeeze. It kept the cold from fading him, from pulling him to little parts. 

Sam always seemed to know how to do that. He lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a drink of it. Sour, but he thought he remembered enjoying it once. 

“There you go.” Dean said, tone trying for encouraging. 

“You can’t fix hell with a beer.” Sam said with a sigh. 

“Can’t fix hell with anything, but you can start moving forward.” Dean said. “So. Game plan? Wish we could call Cas, might let him know Michael could possibly be back.” 

Sam sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “We take him with us.”

“That’s an awful idea.” Dean grumbled. 

“Do you have a better one?” Sam asked, rubbing his shoulders.

He took another sip of the beer, staying with his body pressed against Sam’s side. 

“We could have left him at the psych ward, let them take care of him. Look a lot of shit is going down; we can’t watch him and take care of ourselves too.” Dean was pacing. “No offence, Adam.” 

“We can’t leave him there either, they’re not going to know how to help him.” Sam said quietly. 

“We’re going to get him killed.” Dean complained. 

He leaned into Sam’s shoulder, closing his eyes. “That’s not new.” He muttered. 

Sam almost laughed; he could feel the vibration in his chest, the hum of air held. “We need to keep an eye on him, you and me. You know what Hell is like, Dean.” He squeezed his shoulders a little bit.

“And if Michael shows up?” Dean sat down, staring at them. 

“Then we deal with it, Dean.” 

He sighed softly, wondering why Sam was indulging the illusion. But he couldn’t bring himself to dispel it. 

***

He woke as soon as Sam shifted from behind him, but he didn’t move. There were still warm blankets tucked around him, and the temperature was approaching comfortable levels. 

“He still asleep?” Dean asked quietly. 

“Yeah, I think so. What’d you find?” 

Dean grunted. “Nothing useful. We can’t stay here to baby him, Sam.”

Sam was quiet, though he could hear him moving around. “He’s still in there.”

“Yeah, sure. But he’s not together enough for hunting. We could leave him with Jody and the girls?” Dean’s voice was quiet. “Look, I don’t like the idea of handing him off to someone else any more than you do, but right now we need to think about what’s best for him. Even if we leave him in the car, shit could target him. And that’s if he has himself together enough to remember he’s supposed to stay in the car. You don’t take crazy on a quest for a primal force.” 

Sam snorted a little. “Dean, I don’t think he believes this is real.”

That rendered Dean quiet for a few moments; he listened to them moving around, picking up the little sounds of books being opened or furniture being shifted. He could open his eyes and watch them, but he didn’t feel like it. 

It had been a long time since he’d heard anyone talk to someone else. Sam had talked to him in the cage, always, a constant stream of relaxed, easy words that never hurt and soothed. But hearing a conversation that was just…planning. 

It was strange, and he still wasn’t sure the purpose of any of this. 

“So he thinks he’s still in the cage?” Dean asked, finally. 

“I think so. When we picked him up at the hospital, what he said was “You came back.” Sam sounded a little bit guilty. “So he thinks this is a game, and right now he’s trying to figure out where it all ends up with him getting hurt again.” 

“I thought the cage was just that thing that he transported us into?” Dean said, and a chair creaked as he sat down.

Sam was quiet again. “Not…always. It’s a bit more malleable than what you saw. Lucifer could make…places, things, people… and it’d be so real that you would think that maybe, maybe, you’ve gotten out. It could be a maze of places. One after another, places where you had good memories. He liked…” Sam trailed off, the end of the bed dipped and Sam’s hand touched his leg. 

“So he thinks Lucifer is fucking with him, and he thinks you’ve the only real person in all of this. Except the devil could be fucking anyone? Damnit.” 

“Pretty much.” Sam circled a thumb against his leg. 

He stretched out a little from his curl to make the touch easier. 

Sam sighed a little. “You need more sleep.” 

He cracked an eyelid, licking his lips. “Yeah.”

Sam shook his head slightly. “Go take a shower, we’ll get breakfast done. You can grab clothes out of my bag.”

He gave a sleepy, compliant nod. A shower sounded nice, even if the water wasn’t real. He pushed the blankets down and gave Dean a curious look.

The other man was staring at him, frowning a little, his forehead furrowed. “How’d you sleep?” 

“I slept.” He looked at Sam for guidance, but Sam offered nothing. “Dreams. But I slept.”

Dean grimaced. “Nightmares?”

He shrugged. “I kept expecting her to be there, but she wasn’t.” He responded vaguely. “I wanted to see her, but you came instead.”

Dean frowned for a second, and then shot Sam a look. “Your mom?”

He frowned, dredging his memories. “Is that who she was?”

“Probably.” Dean said. “Sorry.”

He stared at Dean, briefly confused. “Ok.” He wasn’t sure what he was being apologized to for. Had Dean kept her away? 

“Look, just go take a shower.” Dean said, shaking his head a little bit. 

He glanced at Sam, who only nodded, which decided his course of action. 

***

Sam handed him a bottle of water as soon as he got out of the shower. He held it in his hands as he walked to the table, watching the liquid slosh around inside. 

“Drink it, Adam.” Sam told him. 

He blinked at Sam for a moment, not understanding. “Why?”

“Just, trust me.” Sam said, crouching down in front of him.

He frowned. “I do.” He wasn’t sure what the water had to do with trusting Sam, but if Sam said it did then it must. He twisted the lid out, taking a small sip of it and sloshing it around inside his mouth. 

Sam smiled, which meant it must have been proof enough. 

He tried to smile back, tentative with the gesture. It had been a long while since he’d had any reason. But Sam smiled at him, so he felt like he should smile back. 

“Drink the whole thing; we’re going to set up a schedule so you don’t get dehydrated.” Sam said gently. 

He grimaced, swallowing the mouthful of water. “I won’t.” 

Sam sighed. “You will. This is where you’re going to have to trust me. Water, food. You need them now.”

He wrinkled his nose at Sam. “Is that part of this one?”

“It is.” Sam agreed, almost too readily. 

He thought about questioning it, but Sam had asked if he trusted him, and he did, so asking more questions might make him think he didn’t. He took a drink of the water instead, swishing it around his mouth. 

Sam gave him another smile, putting a hand on his shoulder.

If drinking the water made Sam happy, then he guessed that he could manage to do it. So he kept drinking it. 

“We’re going to take you into town later, get you some clothes and things.” Sam told him, putting a plate on the table in front of him. “We’ve got a case we need to take care of.”

He nodded, staring at the food, picking out the individual crystals of salt on the potatoes, staring into them. 

“Eat, Adam.” Sam told him. 

He picked up the fork, poking at the food a bit before he took a slow bite, chewing mechanically and a swallowing it. It tasted familiar, but he couldn’t say where or when he had eaten it before. 

Maybe it was just meant to be familiar. 

“He need an aspirin or anything?” Dean asked from the doorway, watching him. 

He took another bite of the potatoes, chewing until it felt like he could swallow it without choking. 

“Probably not. Even if his head hurts, he’s not going to register minor discomforts as a problem.” Sam replied, sounding almost clinical as he dropped another plate of food on the table.

“Was it like that for you?” Dean asked, tone suddenly unreadable. 

“I had more of a buffer. But when the wall came down…A little of it, yeah. Higher pain tolerance now for sure.” Sam had turned back to the stove, mixing things and pouring them into the pans over the fire. 

He watched them, slowly eating the food, working his way through the entire plate. 

Sam sat a pair of tablets on the table in front of him. “Tums, trust me.”

He blinked again, slow and uncertain. “I do.” He repeated, wondering if Sam needed the reassurance. He ate the two chalky tablets, and drank a little more of the water to wash the taste out of his mouth. “Artificially fruit flavored.” He commented. 

“I think they probably taste like colored chalk, but they will settle your stomach.” Sam grinned, touching the top of his head gently. 

He smiled a bit wanly at him, watching Dean as he wandered over to the table to sit down. Dean looked thoughtful for a moment, taking a bite of his breakfast. “Everything taste alright?” 

He took another bite and chewed it, avoiding the question. 

Dean quirked an eyebrow, glancing at Sam. “You tell him what we’re going to be doing today?”

Sam nodded, flicking his hair out of his face.

“You alright with that?” Dean asked him, pushing his food around his plate. “I mean, it’s a big world out there.”

He shrugged, still chewing. “It doesn’t really matter.” He said, finally. 

“Yeah? That what they teach you down there?” Dean finally took a bite, frowning at his plate. 

He looked at Sam, but Sam had his head down and was pretending not to listen. No guidance there. 

He stared at his food, hunching his shoulders. 

Dean was watching him now, brow slightly furrowed. “I think it matters.”

He chewed on the food, staring at the plate. “I guess its fine.” He said, finally. 

It was part of the game; he had to go along with it. 

“Sure.” Dean said, glancing at Sam. 

“It’ll be fine.” Sam said quietly, bringing his plate to the table and sitting down. 

He nodded, agreeing with Sam. 

***

The store was crowded, but Sam and Dean seemed to have decided how best to buffer him from it. Sam had grabbed a large black duffel bag and a few packets of underwear and socks, grabbed two belts and then started in on pants. He held up a few things, tossing them in the basket. 

Dean went for shirts, coming back over to him to hold them against his shoulders. 

He kept flinching away, but Dean never seemed to notice, and after awhile when nothing happened except the shirts were either hung back up or tossed in the cart, he lost the energy to flinch away. It seemed the contact lasted longer when he stopped jerking away from the man. 

Dean even gave his shoulder a pat a few times when something satisfied him. 

He smiled a bit awkwardly, running his fingers over the fabric. 

It probably only took an hour, but by the time it was done he was ready to curl up in a corner of the back of the Impala and pull a blanket over his head. 

“Yeah I hate it too.” Dean told him, tossing the bag in the back of the Impala. 

Sam stopped for a second, seeming torn between climbing in the back seat with him and sitting in the front of the car. 

He traced his hand over the inside of the door, leaning into the corner of it, the leather yielding to his body. “I drove this car.”

“You did?” Dean looked back at him, then at Sam.

“Someone taught me to drive this car.” He closed his eyes, thinking of…Michael? No. It hadn’t been Michael. 

Someone else. 

“Huh.” Dean said. “Sammy, get your ass in the car. We’re leaving.” 

Sam got in the front of the car, looking at him. “You ok?”

He nodded, still tracing his fingers over the inside of the door. 

“She’ll keep you safe.” Dean told him, starting the car up. “That’s her job.” He patted the wheel, then backed them out of the parking space. 

He still didn’t understand the game, but he was alright with staying in it for a little while longer. 

He wanted to stay in it. 

“Hey, Adam.” Sam handed a bottle of water. “Drink up, ok?” 

He took the bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a few sips before he held the last in his mouth, rolling his tongue around in it. It didn’t taste, really, but it didn’t not taste either. 

Not like the water in Lucifer’s illusions. He kept rolling it around his tongue, only to swallow it and then take another mouthful of it, trying to chase down the taste, what it was. 

“You ok?” Sam asked. 

“Tastes weird.” He said, twisting his tongue around. “Not…like a taste, but like…I don’t know.” 

“It’s not an illusion.” Sam said, after a few moments of pained silence. “So it doesn’t taste like sulfur.” 

He took another sip of it, holding it in his mouth, trying to chase down the not taste. “Yeah. I guess.” 

“He made food?” Dean asked. 

“Sometimes.” Sam said. “Water, food, depended on how he was feeling. It always tasted just a little bit off.” 

He listened to Sam explain, swishing the water around in his mouth, trying to find the element that was there that hadn’t been there before. 

“He’s the devil and he couldn’t master water?” Dean asked, frowning. 

“Well, I guess. Powers of creation and all.” Sam responded awkwardly, rubbing his hands on his jeans. 

He tilted his head, craning his neck at a weird angle to rest against the glass. “Michael could. He did it once just to prove it, but he said Gabriel was better at it than he was.” He closed his eyes, letting the rumble of the engine soothe him. 

“That right? You and him talk much?” Dean asked over his shoulder. 

He laughed once, keeping his eyes closed. “He did it to prove that he could, because I told him he was losing his Grace. So he drowned me in it.” 

Dean went still and quiet behind the wheel. 

“Michael could be just as vicious as Lucifer in the Cage.” Sam said softly. “They were both angry, and mortals were the thing they were the angriest with.” 

“Yeah. I caught that.” Dean muttered under his breath. 

He thought maybe he wasn’t meant to be listening 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is taking place mid season Eleven, after they know about Lucifer but before they know about Chuck. Which is fun for the boys. 
> 
> Fixing things isn't easy, but damn they are going to try.


	3. Not Alone

He struggled in Michael’s grasp, listening to the angel’s whispers as he did so. They had taken a sing song edge to them, whispers of madness that pressed down on him heavier than his body did.

He whined, trying to squirm away, but with every move the skin on his wrists crumbles like ash, and Michael laughed and laughed and brought their bodies close, stealing away every thought he had.

He cried out, but he knew there was no one to hear him, only Lucifer, and Lucifer wouldn’t help him.

“Stop.” He whispered. “Stop.”

But Michael never would, and his skin was crumbling to nothing.

“I have you now, you’re all mine. All mine.” Michael whispered against his ear, holding him still as he pushed and pushed and wrung every last drop of pain out of him that he could. “No more here to save you.”

“Adam.” Sam’s voice cut through the dream, and he startled, nearly falling into the floorboards, not sure where he was for the first few moments of awareness.

“Shh. Just a nightmare. That’s all.” Sam’s voice and touch were both gentle. He latched onto them, rope in the water near the drowning parts of him that weren’t sure which way were up.

Sam held his hand tightly, thumb circling against the back of it, trying to sooth him.

He rolled up his sleeves, checking his wrists. But they were just skin, no paper ash gone crumbly under the touch of a manic angel.

Sam touched his wrist gently, chafing it between his hands until the skin had a rosy color, but it wasn’t flaking away, and that meant it had just been a nightmare, probably.

“Better?” Sam asked.

He nodded jerkily, pressing his face to the door. “Where’re we?”

“On a case. Remember?” Sam gentled his grip. “Surveillance.”

“Right.” He mumbled.

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked, the question was a familiar one, now. It felt like Sam was always asking the question.

How was he feeling anyway? It felt like ages since he’d hurt in anything but nightmares. Sam was on him constantly about food and water and making sure he had enough of both. Dean kept handing him beers until he wasn’t sure if they were a peace offering or Dean’s version of a fuzzy blanket. He kept taking them, and drinking them, because it seemed to numb some of the weirdness inside his head to a dull roar. He slept, he slept a lot. Too much, maybe, but sleep held its own safety. In the car it was easy, Sam was literally right next to him. In the bunker it was harder, the beds were too small and he was always afraid he was going to push Sam right out of it, but Sam never complained about how wobbly it might make him feel, or how poor his sleep must be.

“I don’t know.” He whispered, finally, after probably too long of a pause. Sam gave his hand another squeeze and sat back against the window.

 

***

The car creaked as Dean opened the door, dropping himself into the seat.

He kept doodling without looking up, waiting for Sam to get in the other side.

"You been drawing the entire time we were gone?" Dean asked, staring at him in the mirror.

He nodded slightly, finally looking up. Dean's face was a mess, a split down his cheek. "What happened?"

"Angry ghost." Dean replied with a little snort. "Threw one heck of a punch. What are you drawing?"

He flipped the notebook around so Dean could see it, only to get a little blink.

"Devil's trap? Where'd you learn that?"

He nodded slightly to the window, to Sam's side of the car. Sam was still talking to the victim.

Dean snorted. "He teach you that recently or while you were down there?"

He chewed on his lip for a moment. "Down there. In the cage." Dean never talked about hell like it was here, and out of interest of not breaking the illusion that let him sleep in the back of the Impala or in the bunker, he went along with it for the most part.

"What else did he teach you?" Dean asked, looking honestly curious.

He shrugged, resuming his work on the trap, muttering under his breath briefly in Enochian when Sam slid into the car.

Sam snorted, glancing over his shoulder at him. "I don't think that's accurate."

He glanced up at his brother, managing a faint smile. "He asked what I learned in hell, Angels are assholes. I think that's pretty well covering it."

Dean was glancing between them, frowning a little.

"Covering it or not, it's not all of them. We've met a few nice ones." Sam suggested, leaning to stare over his shoulder.

"What's he saying?" Dean asked, intruding.

"He's griping about angels. Says you asked what he learned?" Sam responded.

He could feel the shift of the language, though he had to blink a bit to slot the parts of his brain back into place that understood English.

"I asked what you taught him. He's drawing devil's traps in his notebook. Seriously, Sammy?"

Sam shrugged, grinning. "We had a lot of time."

"Nerd." Dean grumbled. "We clear?"

"We're clear. They'll call us if they have any other problems." Sam dangled his hand over the back of the seat, and he handed him the notebook, watching as Sam flipped through the pages, studying the detail of each of the seals he had drawn. "Watch your outer lines."

He hummed a bit, twisting the button on his sleeve.

"What are you now, a professor?" Dean asked, frowning at his brothers.

Sam shrugged a bit, handing him the notebook back.

“Cute.” Dean grumbled.

***

 

There were times he would lose track of himself. He would come to staring at a wall or with Sam leaning over him with a bottle of water and a concerned look on his face. Rarely, it was Dean, with a beer and an "Awake?" barked like an order.

He never knew how long they lasted. They reminded him of staring into the darkness of Limbo, watching through the cracks of the cage.

There was barely enough space to slip his fingers out sometimes. But he did anyway, just to feel something that wasn't part of his prison.

The walls of the bunker were plain, but they were irregular.

He thought of it as his prison, even though it had existed far before he had.

Michael had reminded him of that constantly, he knew it in his bones. But the cage had only had Lucifer before them, so it became his prison, and Sam's, and Michael's.

He forgot blinking, sometimes, when he came back into himself his eyes would be dry.

It wasn't sleep, he could lose himself in the darkness outside the Impala just as easily as he could sitting down on the bed in the Bunker, he could lose himself in the middle of a restaurant with Sam and Dean talking to him and where he might have even been engaging in conversation with them.

This had to be one of the more unnerving moments, standing in the middle of an empty warehouse, hands clinched at his sides, breathing so locked down that he could count the seconds between breaths.

There were people around him, unfamiliar people, not Sam and Dean. That was enough to make his chest tight.

A few of them were injured, and his knuckles stung. They were all eying him warily.

He kept his face neutral, trying to figure out where he was and what was happening.

"Shit." One of the people still on their feet muttered. "What's he on?"

He turned his head towards the person who had spoken, and the guy stepped back, holding up his hands.

"Shit." The guy repeated the curse. "Shit."

He straightened slightly, looking down at one of the guys on the floor. There was blood on his face, his arm was bent at an unnatural angle. He couldn't think of anything to say. So he stayed silent.

This could be part of a game, he had woken up in situations like this, when Lucifer was indulging Michael and Michael got bored.

Sam wasn't here, he couldn't take guidance from his brother on what to do.

He turned his head slowly around the circle, and every time he looked at one of the guys they backed nervously away. He didn't really want to fight, but if they were going to keep fighting, he would fight them.

One of the guys on the ground shifted, crawling backwards slowly on his hands, never taking his eyes off him. "He's as crazy as the other two."

"Leave." He snarled, finally, trying for some of Michael's imperious finality. He wasn't sure what language he was speaking at the moment, maybe English, probably not. It was never English when he came back into himself.

The guys that were standing were still backing away, the ones on the ground that were conscious seemed to be trying to do so.

This was a check he knew he probably couldn't cash if they decided to attack him.

"Shit, it's the other two." The first guy said, and turned and ran, fleeing the warehouse.

He watched him go, startling a bit as Sam came to his side, catching his shoulder and the fist he started to throw in his direction.

"Hey." Sam's voice was gentle. "It's alright, it's us."

He darted his eyes to Dean, who was checking the guys on the ground. The rest had run, he must have lost himself again. Because the last he remembered there had still been a ring.

"What happened?" Dean asked from the ground, checking the guy he thought he remembered crawling backwards away from him. Had he moved?

He looked at Sam, and then back at the six guys on the ground. "I don't know." He told Dean honestly.

Dean frowned at him. "You don't know?"

He shook himself a little bit. "No. I..."

Sam gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Deep breath."

"You were in the car, and then you weren't. What the hell happened?" Dean stood up, scowling and casting his gaze around.

He took the commanded deep breath, but let it out without saying anything. He didn't know. He had no idea how he'd gotten from curled up in the back of the Impala to standing in the middle of a warehouse, having clearly been in a fight.

"He doesn't know, Dean. What are they?" Sam asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"People, I think. Dead people." Dean scowled, riffling through pockets.

"Just humans?" Sam asked quietly.

"Fuck if I know. They're dead. Little hard to tell. Got a few IDs, but nothing consistent."

He swallowed back the taste of bile in his mouth, turning around towards the doorway that Sam and Dean had come through.

"Let's just get him back to the car, we can figure it out later."

"And get a goddamned baby leash." Dean growled, tossing him a look that was somewhere between concerned and angry.

He shrank back against Sam's shoulder, trying to put him between them.

"You really don't remember?" Sam asked him quietly.

He shook his head. "I woke up here."

"Ok. It's ok, we'll figure it out." Sam gave his shoulder a squeeze, guiding him towards the door.

The car had moved from where he'd last remembered it, parked just outside of the warehouse. He squinted at it, his head aching. "How'd you find me?"

"Cellphone." Dean growled behind him. "You had it in your pocket and whatever happened, the GPS was still active in it. Get in the car."

Sam guided him forward, pulling the back door open.

"My notebook is gone." He muttered, feeling wooden and a little bit broken.

"We'll get you another one." Sam said gently, guiding him into the back seat. "Did someone grab you?"

He shook his head, tucking his hands between his knees and holding them there until his bruised knuckles and scraped palms started screaming in protest.

"Sam, get in the damned car." Dean snapped, slamming his own door. "Front or back, make a choice. You can't treat the damned kid like a blind kitten when we just saw him break someone's neck."

Sam winced, then climbed in the back of the car with him, crowding him into the center. "Do you remember anything?"

He shook his head again, letting Sam grab his hands and get an sack of ice to press against them. "I broke his neck?"

"Yeah." Sam said quietly.

He shuddered. "I rated that a 1. Broken neck severs the spinal cord and kills you quickly."

Dean gave them a look in the rear-view mirror. "Has he gone serial killer?"

Sam shook his head. "Do you remember anything?"

"I heard them talking, and then you guys were there and they were gone." Or dead. He hadn't counted the ones on the floor.

"Demons? Angels?" Sam asked Dean.

"I told you, I couldn't fucking tell. They were pretty dead. Necks snapped, every single one of them. Which shouldn’t have stopped a demon, and definitely shouldn’t have put down an angel unless they decided to retreat.”

He pressed himself against Sam’s side, seeking the comfort that didn’t come.

***

He was walking again, slow plodding steps with one foot in front of the other. He kept falling, but he always got up. He never let himself stay on the ground for long.

He knew he couldn't stop, he had to keep walking forward.

"Where are you going?" Michael asked him, thoughtful.

He didn't answer, keeping his gaze ahead. One foot, then the other, fall, get up, keep going.

He knew how this worked. He had walked this broken road a million times, had tripped over these same cracks.

Michael walked alongside him, or maybe behind him, sometimes in front of him.

He couldn't make his mind focus on what Michael was doing, he had to keep his focus on his feet, dragging them up so that they didn't catch on the uneven pavement, or the remnants of plants that had tried and failed to grow in the summer heat.

This was a wasteland, and he was the only thing within it.

"You're not." Michael told him, stepping carefully over a shredded bit of tire some long forgotten car must have left there.

He closed his eyes rather than respond, taking another slow step.

"Why do you keep walking?" Michael asked. "Why not stop?"

There weren't words to describe the feeling that kept him moving, even when his body broke and refused to respond correctly. He couldn't explain falling off a bike, or someone lifting him from the wreckage and drying old tears on his face. Try again.

Try again.

Try again.

This time he wouldn't fall.

He tripped, stumbled over the wreckage of the tire, but caught himself without going all the way down, and looked up to make sure Michael had seen him.

But the angel was gone, like a flicker in the darkness, and he was alone. Again the only thing in the wasteland he walked through.

His feet kept walking, and after a few moments of looking around, he let his head drop again to watch his feet. Again, again, keep moving.

He had to keep moving. Try again.

He remembered her in snatches of laughter, of reassurance, of confidence in him. He had failed, but she believed he should try again. So he had to keep trying.

Again, and again, and again.

Even if he gained nothing from it, even if it kept looping. Even if he kept arriving at this road, this wasteland, far from dawn.

The gravel crunched, the road stretched on before him. So he kept walking.

There was nothing but the road, but there had been something before it.  
Some part of him tried to believe that if he walked for long enough, he might reach it again.

***

He woke curled up in the back of the Impala, head against Sam's shoulder, feeling drowsy and heavy. He wasn't sure at first what had woken him up, and it took him longer than he wanted to realize that the car had stopped.

"You alive back there, Kid?" Dean asked.

He grumbled something affirmative in response, not really words, but apparently sufficient.

"Good to know you're a morning person just like Sam, come on. Let's get inside." Dean opened the back of the car to grab the battered cooler, and Sam opened the other door to help him get out of the backseat. His blanket was also missing.

Someone had taken his blanket and his notebook.

He was more annoyed by the theft than he wanted to be. They were just things, and things weren't that important.

But they were his things, and he was annoyed that now someone else had them.

Sam kept an arm around his shoulder as he led him inside, and he leaned drowsily into his brother rather than hold up his full weight on his own, head down to watch his feet walk so that he didn't trip and take them both down.

He had done that once, and it had taken Dean an hour to stop giggling about it.

Good natured, he was sure, but he hated being laughed at. He hated Dean laughing because sometimes his feet didn't cooperate and lift up far enough that he didn't trip on them.

Sam took him into the kitchen, easing him down into a chair before he went to get him a water. Dean arrived on cue with a beer, which he took and started sipping before he caved to Sam's disapproving gaze and took a few swallows of the water too.

"So, you remember anything?" Dean asked, sitting backwards on one of the chairs with his own beer.

He shook his head. "I think I was napping. And then I woke up with them around me." He wrinkled his nose. "I think I lost time twice."

"Twice?" Sam asked, leaning against the counter.

"I remember them saying you were there, and then I lost time again."

Dean frowned, swirling his beer in the bottle. "So you don't remember breaking anyone's neck?"

He shook his head. "I did?"

"Yeah. Guy went for a knife and a second later he was dead. None of that ringing a bell?"

He shook his head again, feeling a headache coming on.

"He knows how to fight. I taught him." Sam said quietly. "It could just be a defensive response."

Dean gave Sam a look that said something he couldn't quite follow. Sam made a face, shrugging a little bit. "I'm just saying there are other possibilities."

"Than what?" He asked quietly.

Dean sighed and took a swig of his beer rather than answering.

Sam shifted uncomfortably against the counter, finding a point on the far wall to stare at rather than look at him.

He looked between them, trying to smother the little kernel of fear that was unfurling in his stomach and growing roots.

"This happened before, losing time and waking up somewhere else?" Dean asked, trying to act relaxed and calm.

"Don't treat me like a case." He said quietly, ducking his head.

"Do you have an answer?" Dean responded. "You lost time before since you go back?"

He shrugged, staring at his beer rather than at either brother. "I lose time."

"How often?" Dean asked, taking another drink of his beer.

He shrugged again, keeping his eyes down.

"Do you ever feel a...presence when you do?" Sam asked carefully. "Like..." Sam trailed off, grimacing. "Do you?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, took a slow, deep breath and tried not to feel hurt. Michael was just a fact of life, when it got down to it. Sam knew that, he had just been playing along.

"Adam, I have trouble snapping someone's neck and I've been doing this a long damned time. You were stone cold when you did it, we saw you. Now, you didn't use grace or anything like that. But you weren't fighting...human." Dean said, ruthlessly blunt.

"You're asking if I'm Michael." He said slowly, keeping his eyes. "Because I can't be a demon, and you've already tested me with silver and iron, so I can't be much anything else."

Sam sighed. "Not exactly. Do you think Michael is still hanging around?"

He opened his eyes, looking at Sam. "I don't feel anything. I'm not burning." He said, looking back down at his hands after a moment. "I just don't..."

"You don't remember." Dean said quietly, grimacing at him. "Drink your beer, kid."

He obediently took a few sips of it.

Sam looked unhappy, chewing on his lip, his forehead furrowed. He looked for the first time unsure, almost panicked. He was trying to hide it, but Adam had been around him often enough when Lucifer was baiting him.

He knew what it looked like when his brother was on the verge of breaking in some way.

He finished off the beer, curling his arms around his stomach in a futile effort to quiet the whispers. "I keep having dreams."

Dean sat up straighter. "Dreams?"

He didn't continue, looking at the battered floor of the kitchen, trying to find the words to explain the endless road and the constant taunting.

"Adam?" Sam said gently.

"The road, I'm always walking along the road. Its empty, except for me- us - and I keep falling and getting back up. I have to keep walking, because if I stop -" He grimaced. "He's there, asking why. Telling me to give up."

Sam looked at Dean, who looked uncomfortable and unhappy. "Adam, you know you're out of hell, right?"

He closed his eyes, not sure if he wanted to answer. Either way he felt like he'd lose.

"Do you remember anything from how you got on that road where they found you?" Dean asked.

"I just remember walking." He told Dean, trying to give every detail he could. "I remember falling, skinning my hands and knees. I remember the trucker. But before I got there - no." He could remember hell, he could remember Michael sitting next to him, mocking him for his dreaming.  
But he didn't remember arriving on the road.

"So how do we figure out if he's been touched by an angel, then?" Dean grumbled, mostly to Sam.

He flinched without meaning to, tucking his hands inside his over shirt, balling up the fabric in his fists.

Sam had gone pale, lips pressed into a thin line. "Dean- Don't. That's-yeah, don't." He took a deep, shaky breath and shifted his gaze to him. "Revoke permission."

"How?" He whispered, holding the fabric tightly.

"It tends to do more if you can get archaic. Go with Enochian." Sam suggested with a little grimace.

Dean was looking between them with a frown on his face. "Sammy?"

Sam shook his head roughly. "Not now."

He rubbed his hands against his ribs, shivering a little, trying to think his way through it. "I Adam, son of John, Re-"

The world went dark and he lost himself.

***  
He woke on a knee, Sam's hands on his shoulders rubbing small circles of reassurance, repeating his name in a gentle rhythm that almost lulled him to sleep.

They weren't in the kitchen anymore, they were outside, and Sam looked worried.

He stared at his brother, silent, the pit in his stomach yawning open until it threatened to swallow him whole.

Sam pulled him forward into a hug, rubbing his back gently.

He turned his face until it was hidden from view, feeling the start of the tremors in his muscles, the coldness that almost always bit him when  
Michael left him. He could smell the remnants of something burning, and hear someone else breathing closely.

"He back?" Dean asked, announcing himself.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's him again." Sam rocked him a little, still rubbing his back.

His hands felt raw, the skin of his palms split open and gouged deeply, but he still clutched at Sam's shirt.

"You're ok." Sam whispered. "You're ok, you're safe. It's ok."

He tugged on Sam's shirt, and Sam pulled him into a harder hug, until it hurt. Because then it made it through the numbness that Michael left behind.

"What's wrong with him?" Dean asked, sounding concerned. "It didn't-with Dad?"

"Michael's had a lot longer with Adam." Sam said quietly, still rubbing his back. "He gets-cold." Sam sounded a bit odd, worried.

"Do you think he'll keep the deal?" Dean asked quietly.

"No. Not of his own volition. But I don't think he has a choice right now, he wasn't lying." Sam said softly. "Neither of them were lying about how broken he is."

He shuddered, pressing his face hard into Sam's shoulder.

"Let's get you back inside." Sam said softly, guiding him to his feet. Dean stepped in to help support his weight when it became obvious that he couldn't.

"You got him?"

"Yeah." Sam replied, shifting him until he had one of his arms over his shoulder. "Make some coffee or something."

He leaned on Sam, sealing his eyes closed, shivering in the night air.

He didn't want to speak, speaking acknowledged how sore his throat was and how dark it was outside and that time had passed and he hadn't been aware of it.

Speaking meant acknowledging that Michael was still inside him somewhere, and that he could come out, would come out if challenged.

"Hey hey, easy." Sam gave him a squeeze. "Focus on now. You remember how this works?"

He nodded a little bit, chewing on his lip until he tastes blood. His blood, not Michael's tainted blood. He could taste only his own essence.  
That had to be worth something.

"What did he say?" He finally croaked.

"That he's holding you together, and that you're holding him together." Sam said after a moment's pause. "That you're broken, but so is he. That when we cast our spell he was aware enough to slip through the cracks of the cage with you and bail."

He shook his head, wanting to deny it, wanting to deny Michael.

"He's agreed not to come out unless he's needed - like you're about to die "needed" - or if you give permission. We made him swear in Enochian."  
He whimpered in response, not lifting his head to look at Sam, squeezing his eyes shut to blot the tears out.

Sam gave his shoulders another squeeze, not saying anything more about it.

It wasn't over. He knew it hadn't been, but there was a small, stupid part of him that had wanted to believe that it was. That maybe, just maybe, he had escaped.

But he hadn't.

Sam lowed him into the same chair, and Dean handed him another beer. "I've got whiskey if you need something stronger." He offered, crouching down to look him in the face.

He managed a tiny smile, but shook his head and took a drink of the beer instead, managing to swallow it before the first tremor struck him.

Dean caught the bottle before it could hit the floor, then carefully caught his hands, rubbing the spasaming muscles with surprising dexterity. "Hell of a charlie horse."

Sam snorted and started on his shoulders and back, easy the cramps and the spasms until they were just little tremors that vibrated through his hands and made the backs of his knees jump.

Dean went and got a blanket, and handed him the beer again. "Drink, I'll put something in your coffee."

He obeyed, feeling dizzy and worn out, leaning into the gentling touches of Sam's hands on the back of his neck.

Dean brought coffee that smelled like sugar and alcohol. "Here, this'll help."

He took it, taking a long, deep drink of the hot liquid, trying to make his chest relax. “S’not over.” He whispered.

“No.” Dean agreed quietly. “It isn’t.”

***

The water was running clear now, it had been grey when he'd first stepped into the shower. He watched it swirling around the drain, sitting on the floor, losing himself in the motion of it.

His skin was a little red from the earlier scrubbing, chafed around his wrists and ankles, where it had most often flaked away in the past. Where Michael always burned him the worst.

But aside from the grey water and the stinging of his knuckles, he seemed whole.

He felt like he was in pieces, little bits of him broken away, shattered on the floor. A broken, useless doll. Empty eyes and empty heart.

He wanted Dean's anger, or Sam's worry, but he could feel none of it. He was numb.

He shifted, letting the still hot water work its way down his back, relaxing muscles even as he tensed them, his fingers had cut eight perfect half circles into the skin of his palms.

It hurt, but in a distant, far away way that felt like it had no hold on him.

The sound of the water was almost enough to drown out his thoughts, the crafty, traitorous things that kept strangling him.

He shifted his arms around his knees, closing his eyes to block the way his reflection moved in the door. He knew it wasn't him. It had only shifted twice, both times with more grace than he ever even tried to move, and there were battered circles beneath the other figures eyes that he knew weren't his.

"Just leave me alone." He whispered, finally, when the presence got to be too much.

"You're the one that keeps going." Michael responded, tone flat.

"Just because I'm moving doesn't mean you have to." He shifted to press his back against the wall of the shower stall, but his reflection remained, just the side of his own body facing him.

Michael said nothing, staring at some fixed point in front of him, hands rests loosely on his knees.

He tried to make his hands relax, but he couldn't. "Just go back."

Michael snorted, standing up in his reflection. "You know I cannot."

He twitched his lips, trying to smirk. "Afraid you've fallen, Mikey? Can't face your brothers?"

Michael sneered, and the thoughts choking him became an actual physical presence of a hand around his throat, squeezing until he almost blacked out, a voice pressed against his ear. "Do not speak of things that you could not possibly understand."

The world twisted at the edges, darkening as his brain struggled to process things. "Afraid because I'm right." He managed, not sure he managed sound.

Michael shoved him, and his head cracked against the back of the shower,

He woke with a start in Sam's bed, jerking himself upright and reflexively feeling for the back of his head. But there was nothing there.

He twisted his fingers in his hair, it was still damp from his earlier shower. His completely normal shower in which nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

He wasn't sure if it was a good thing that he was no longer dreaming of the road or not.

Sam pushed the door open, blinking at him for a moment as he swayed on his feet, clearly drunk. His eyes were red and his hair was a tangled mess around him. "Hey."

"Hey." He repeated, feeling useless, dropping his hands. "You ok?"

Sam seemed to consider the question for a long moment, and took a few staggering steps towards the bed, giving the door a vague shove towards closed and flopping down next to him. "No."

He nodded, running his hands over his knees, feeling awkwardly present for the first time in a long time. "Hell sucked, huh?" He said, finally.  
Sam gave a tired little laugh. "Yeah, it really did."

He reached out and touched Sam's shoulder,offering a tentative squeeze before he dropped his hand back down to his lap. It was weird to find himself in the position of comforting Sam, it had always been the other way around. Sam solidly between him and whatever was trying to hurt him at that moment. But there was nothing here to fight, and maybe that made it harder. He still wasn't sure. "Should get some sleep. It's like four in the morning."

Sam grimaced, flopping down across the bed. "Yeah."

He sat up for a few moments, and then lay back on the bed next to his brother, staring up at the ceiling.

They just lay there for awhile, letting the silence embrace them.

***  
Dean had coffee and breakfast ready by the time they staggered out of bed mid-afternoon.

Sam squinted at him. "Did you even sleep last night?"

Dean shrugged. "Enough. Here, eat. I've got a case for us. Daniel Baker, middle school teacher snaps, kills two neighbors with a rifle, then runs inside telling his wife he has to say goodbye to the baby because he's never going to see her again. Totally out of character, even the wife says so." Dean flipped two files at them. "The autopsy says that they died of blunt force trauma. Pretty weird, right? I figure if we start out as soon as you two are done eating, we can get there by tomorrow. Adam, I need you to shave."

He blinked at Dean, fork full of eggs halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"Shave. Change into something vaguely college looking. You were in med school, right?" Dean sat down, picking up the pot of coffee and pouring himself a cup.

He nodded slowly, though he wasn't sure he remembered enough of it to count. "But why do I need to shave?"

Dean grinned. "Well, it's the family business and the wife is probably going to respond a lot better to a nervous student from the nearby college who was a student of her husband's."

He stared at Dean, sure he was joking, then looked at Sam.

Sam was eating and reading at the same time, not appearing to pay all that much attention to the conversation.

"I don't..." He trailed off, unsure, lifting his hand to rub his face. He was probably a little scruffy, he couldn't remember when he'd shaved last.

"Ok." He agreed, even slower, still unsure and not entirely certain what Dean had planned.

"You'll be safe, you will just blend better than we will." Dean said, taking a drink of his coffee. "Sammy and I will handle the medical examiner and the official channels."

He worked his jaw slowly. "What do you think it is?"

"Possession?" Sam offered, picking up his own coffee, clearing his mouth of food before he contained. "Could be Amara, if there's one shell then there might be other shells."

He furrowed his brow. "Shells?"

"Darkness eats souls. When she does that, the wrapper is still wandering around like a time bomb. I really hope it's just possession." Dean replied.

"Whole lot easier to deal with. The scene is outside, so we can hit it with a few tests. Just need you to get her statement."

He nodded, still feeling a bit tentative, and finally took a bite of his eggs.

Dean gave him an approving nod.

He tried to let that bolster his confidence a little, eating his food slowly. He didn't touch the coffee, he wasn't sure that being caffeinated would help his nerves any.

"So, shave, pack a light bag. We'll probably be there for a few days. I got you a cell phone." Dean lifted the device, wagging it at him until he took it and poked at it a bit.

Sam gave Dean a doubtful look. "Did you sleep at all or are you just running on coffee?"

Dean gave a dismissive wave. "I'm fine, don't worry about it. We all on the same page?"

Sam glanced at him, grimacing a bit. "Did you get Adam ID?"

"And a blazer that should fit." Dean grinned. "I thought ahead."

Sam sighed. "Ok."

He was glad Sam had some confidence in this excursion. "I haven't talked to anyone but you guys since I got back." He said, nervous.

"Which is why you need to start." Dean said, firm. "You can't just hide in the bunker and in the back of the car for the rest of your life."

"And we need to find out sooner rather than later if I can?" He asked, feeling a slight twist to his lips.

Dean nodded. "Got it in one."

He fidgeted with his fork. "What if I can't?"

"Then we deal with it when we get there. But we're not starting this with the idea that you can't." Dean replied with a little shrug.

He took a deep breath, chewing on his lower lip. "Are you doing this because of Michael?"

Dean looked so honestly started for a moment that he couldn't hold the thought in his head. "What? No. That shithead might be riding around in the back of your skull, but the less he pokes his nose out the happier I'll fucking be. This is about you, kid. I've been to hell, it fucking sucks, and it takes awhile to get to where humanity feels normal again. But you have to start."

He let the breath out, nodding a bit and resumed eating his food.

***

Mrs. Baker was understandably reluctant to let him in, but when he mentioned he was a former student of her husband, she gave him a tired smile and let him in.

He had turned the sound off the phone the eighth time Sam had texted him to check in. “Sorry. My brother is really worried about me; he knows how much Mr. Baker meant to me.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine. Really. It’s good that he cares so much about you.”

The baby was sitting in a playpen, gnawing on one of her blocks. He watched her for a few minutes, listening to Mrs. Baker rattle around in the kitchen, making tea. She looked at him, tilting her head a bit in a very unbabylike way.

He frowned at her, fumbling a bit with the EMP Sam had insisted he take with him, watching the sensor. He was only a few feet away, but he wasn’t getting a reading. He climbed to his feet, walking to the mantle next to the playpen, pretending to look at pictures. It lit up.

One of the pictures had been recently moved, not one of the happy couple, but an empty frame. He stared at it for a second, frowning, trying to fit the pieces together.

“A few of Daniel’s students have been stopping by, I prefer them to reporters.” She said quietly from behind him, carrying the tray into the room and sitting down on the couch.

He jumped a bit, giving her an apologetic smile and returned to his seat, accepting the tea when it was offered. “It just seems so crazy; Mr. Baker was always so supportive of me when I was in school.” He shook his head. “My dad wasn’t around, but he was always willing to talk to me about girls or cars, or things that felt really awkward to talk about with my mom.”

Mrs. Baker smiled. “Sometimes he’d disappear all weekend just to help the boys who came to him for advice, this just seems insane. We were at that party, we had talked to Joe and David just minutes before. I just don’t understand.” She took a sip of her tea, shaking her head.

“I’m sure there has to be some explanation.” He said, reaching to touch her hand. She took his hand and gave it a hard squeeze.

“They’re saying maybe he had a stroke or an aneurysm. Caused him to lose it. His lawyer is already talking about an insanity defense. Every time I talk to him he’s crying, just sobbing like his heard is breaking.”

He shook his head. “Does he remember it?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “He-he says it’s just a blank in his mind, like he wasn’t even there. He woke up with blood all over the gun. Nobody in the neighborhood will talk with me, I mean; my husband killed two people in the middle of the street. I can’t really blame them. Ronda won’t even look at me, and Sally…well, Sally.” She trailed off, staring at a point on the wall.

The baby gave a little cry, and her mother got to her feet on autopilot. “Sorry, Adam, I know you probably came here for comfort.”

He rubbed his wrists. “Mr. Baker did so much for me, I guess I just…wanted to do something for him too, you know?”

She smiled at him, rocking the baby in her arms. “You turned out so well. I’m sure Daniel would love to hear from you.”

He nodded. “I’ll try to stop by to see him. He might not remember me.”

She came over to his side, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “He will. Thank you, Adam. For coming to see us.”

He nodded, understanding the dismissal. “Did you know them?”

She looked down. “I thought I did.” She looked over her shoulder at the baby, gave him another sad smile, and shut the door.

He furrowed his brow, staring at the door for a moment before he turned and walked down the sidewalk, shoving his hands into his pockets and wandering off in a seemingly random direction.

Dean had wanted him to get a reading off the sight of the murders, and figured people might yell at him less.

He was glad he looked more harmless than either of his brothers.

“You went to see Mrs. Baker?” A woman asked him, picking up her sheers and making a show of clipping an already well clipped bush.

He nodded a bit. “Her husband was one of my teachers.”

The woman snorted. “That’s what all those boys say. Did he ever touch you?”

He jerked a bit, staring at her blankly. “What?”

“I figure he must have been a pedo or something, the way he snapped. Father Thompson must have found out about it.” The woman told him. “That was one of the men he killed, you know. Father Thompson was a good man, and David too. Neither of them deserved that. Figure it will all come out at the trial, I hope they fry him.” She squinted at him. “So, did he touch you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She sighed. “That’s what all the other boys say. One of you is going to tell me the truth.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Maybe that is the truth.” He told her, feeling sour.

She rolled her eyes at him. “People don’t just snap like that. It’ll come out, whatever he was hiding.” She gestured at the house. “It’ll come out and they’ll leave, you’ll see. That’s what always happens.”

He frowned at her, looking over his shoulder at the house. But there was nothing ominous about it. It was a nice house on a nice, established block.

The woman laughed. “Oh you won’t see anything looking at the house. It’s been thirty years, after all. They’ve painted it up and made it nice again, before they bought it. But I’ve lived here for forty years, and a little paint can’t fool me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

She gave him a look, grinning. “You want some lemonade, kid?”

He looked around, but it was the middle of the afternoon and the old woman was the only one around. He gave the phone a tight squeeze. Sam would take her up on the offer, would find out whatever she knew. “Sure.” He said, finally.

***

Georgia Williams. That was her name. It had been the first thing he’d asked after when she led him inside, sitting nervously on the edge of her couch.

 

“Calm down, I’m not going to eat you.” She told him cheerfully, going into the kitchen and bringing back two glasses of lemonade. “What’s your name?”

 

He stared at the drink. “Adam.”

 

“Adam. And you were a student of Mr. Baker’s.” She smiled a bit wryly. “That house almost burned down about thirty years ago. It was the Davis family that lived there then. Wife, Husband, three kids, one of them a little baby. I knew Angie pretty well, or I think I thought I did. It gets a bit misty as goes by.” She sat back, crossing her long fingered hands over her stomach. “Angie said there was a presence in the house, but I didn’t believe her. So first there was the fire, started in the baby’s nursery when Angie was in the shower and her husband was out of town, the middle girl died, but the boy got his little sister out. Wasn’t the same after that.”

 

He shook his head. “How did the baby survive if the other girl didn’t?”

 

“To hear Angie tell it, the little girl walked in the nursery to give her sister a bottle, and the fire started. Faulty wiring, they thought. She said the older girl was burning on the ceiling, came running out in just a towel. Poor thing.” Georgia shook her head.

 

He frowned at his hands. “I don’t understand what that has to do with Mr. Baker.”

 

“Everything, sweetheart.” Georgia laughed a bit. “Part of this block is newer, did you know?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“Well, it is. About six months after they started building, the house burned down. They changed the numbers, so it won’t pull up in any records. But I’ve next door long enough to remember.” She closed her eyes, rocking a bit in her chair, humming to herself. “After that, like I said, things were different. They tried, they did. The older boy started getting in some trouble, but they pulled him out of it. Then one night about a year later, he was having some friends over. The dad walked into the basement and blew them away. Blood and brains all over the walls. One of those boys lived, played dead until the father left. But not the son.”

 

He nodded slowly. “I still don’t understand.”

 

“Be patient. You will.” She smiled at him. “The young don’t understand pacing.”

 

“Sorry.” He mumbled, fidgeting with his cell phone.

 

“The police came in, took him away. Come to find out that he had been abusing that boy, and Angie had found out about it. She was going to leave him, and he couldn’t have that.” She leaned forward, taking in a mouthful of the lemonade. “In his confession, he said that he blamed the boy for the middle girl’s death. Couldn’t look at him or the baby, couldn’t look at Angie. Started drinking, and one day he just snapped.”

 

“What happened to her?” He asked quietly.

 

“They never found Angie, the baby though. Someone found her, brought her home. He hung himself in jail, saved the world the cost of his trial.”

 

He shook his head. “So what does this have to do with Mr. Baker?”

 

She smiled. “They held it in a trust for her. All of the life insurance, all of the property her family had. The father was a banker and had life insurance policies on everyone in the family. So Helen Baker did pretty well for herself, and when she got married well, it seemed like the only choice to move back into that house.” She shook her head. “Poor Helen, everyone keeps dying around her. And David, too, he thought he had escaped. Buckshot scars on his stomach, but he lived. He couldn’t have known.”

 

“But she was just a baby. Does she even remember this?” He scowled, shaking his head. “It sounds pretty isolated.”

 

Georgia shook her head gently. “No. But history tends to repeat itself. Places get injured that, it leaves a wound. That presence Angie thought she felt, maybe it wasn’t there. Maybe she was just spooked. But now? I think there is.”

 

“Why? Except Mr. Baker?” He pressed.

 

“Helen went to live with her aunt, who fixed up the house and started renting it out. Twenty years ago, when Helen was still a little kid, there was another family that lived there.”

 

He watched her, expectant. “Ok?”

 

She smiled, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hands. “One day, the family goes off driving. Camping, they say. I don’t know where, I just know they found them on a boat in the middle of a lake. Or what was left of them. Their throats were all slit, ear to ear, no sign of whoever killed them. They cleaned out the house, started renting it again. It goes for awhile with nothing happening, couple minor domestic disputes, but nothing really terrible.” She flicked her fingers. “But then, like clock work, ten years ago there’s another family, another mother and two little girls. I would watch them play in the backyard, climbing those trees back there. Then one day, they stop going outside. The mom doesn’t leave the house anymore. The father leaves to go to work, comes back, but it seems like he’s the only one in there.” She paused; watching him, waiting to make sure her story had the correct impact.

 

He licked his lips, feeling sick. “What happened to them?”

 

Georgia leaned back. “They never found the mother or the older girl. Just like Angie. But they found the little one tied to a bed, still alive, but only just. She had these symbols carved all over her body – and worse, her father had cut out her tongue. Way I heard it told, she had gone completely insane.”

 

He shook his head. “That can’t be real.”

 

She shook a finger at him. “Doubts I can tolerate, but if you dig, you will find the stories. You mark my words boy, no matter what. Something evil’s got in that house.”

 

He fidgeted with his phone some more, squeezing it.

 

“So that’s why I think there will be something about that man. Because if you knew Mr. Davis, you never would have pegged him as someone who would hurt a fly. But the truth comes out, much as we want to hide it.”

 

He furrowed his brow a little, looking down at his phone. “But why kill the priest?”

 

“Who knows how evil works?” Georgia waved her fingers at him. “You haven’t touched your lemonade; don’t trust a crazy old woman?”

 

He gave her an awkward smile. “It’s a creepy story, makes me a bit nauseous.”

 

She snorted. “You kids these days, no stomach for reality. On with you then, take that spooky story back to your dorm.” She went serious. “Stay away from Helen, and her baby. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something not right.”

 

He grimaced. “Thanks. For the warning.”

 

She laughed.

 

***  
  
Sam bounced to his feet the moment he slipped into the hotel room, concern on his face.

 

“I didn’t get the readings on the murder sight, but the thing was pretty much screaming at the Baker place.” He told Dean, dropping to the bed and putting his face in his hands. “The house numbers changed about thirty years ago, and one of the neighbors was happy to tell me the house’s history. There’s been a lot of deaths, pretty much they follow a pattern.”

 

Dean came over with a beer, and he took it, taking a swig to try to wash the sour taste out of his mouth.

 

“A pattern?” Sam asked, rubbing his shoulders. “Why did you talk to the neighbor?”

 

“She had an action arrow over her head, so I figured if I wanted to unlock 100% I’d better talk to her.” He replied, more sarcastic than he’d intended.

 

Dean snorted. “Alright, tough guy, just give us the Intel.”

 

He swirled the beer in the bottle, taking another drink. “About thirty years ago, the family had a daughter killed in a house fire. Baby somehow escaped the nursery without injury. Then the mom vanishes, and the brother and some of his friends get shot up by dad in the basement. Dad hung himself in jail.”

 

“Shit. Vengeful spirit?” Sam asked.

 

“Could be. Haunting seems to fit the bill, did you see any ectoplasm?” Dean asked, pulling up a chair.

 

He made a face at his brothers. “I wasn’t done.”

 

Sam blinked. “You weren’t?”

 

He shook his head. “Ten years later, family moves in. Goes out camping. They’re found with their throats all slit and no sign of the murder weapon or any evidence of anyone else being on the boat with them.” He lifted his head to look at Dean. “Ten years later, another family moves in. The mom and one daughter disappear, the other daughter is found with strange symbols and her tongue cut out. And one of the victims was the boy who escaped the shooting thirty years ago.”

 

Sam swore. He swore creatively, weaving Enochian and Latin and a few things he wasn’t quite sure he understood into the through line of it.

 

Even Dean looked impressed.

 

“There’s more.”

 

Dean looked at him. “I’m taking you on more cases; we need more old ladies giving us the history of a haunted place. Ok. What else did you find in the three hours you were gone?”

 

He grimaced. “Mrs. Baker? She’s the baby. The one who survived the fire. And there’s something not right about the daughter. Her husband says he flat doesn’t remember the attack.” He looked between his brothers, tilting his head. “There’s really something wrong with the baby, the reader was going completely nuts.”

 

Dean whistled, shaking his head. “Shit.”

 

Sam sighed deeply. “Yeah.”

 

Dean leaned the chair back, frowning. “So, cursed or haunted, my money is on cursed.”

 

Sam rubbed his face, then reached over and gave his shoulder a little squeeze. “You did good. But don’t go in the creepy old woman’s house next time, ok?”

 

He laughed a bit. “Yeah, I’ll let you.”

 

“Good old haunted house. Been awhile since we’ve tackled one of those.” Dean said, a slow grin starting. “I miss that shit.”

 

“I’ll start digging into the history of the place; get started on finding out what I can about the people who are just missing. We should probably officially talk to Mrs. Baker, or at least keep an eye on her. It likes to disappear mothers, whatever it is.”

 

He wrinkled his nose. “Something’s wrong with the baby, though. Like…she wasn’t right. And there was a picture missing from the mantel.”

 

Sam seemed to think it over for a moment. “Well. If possessions are relying on the weak minded, I’d imagine that a toddler would be pretty easy to get a hook in. I’ve got no clue on the picture. Could be anything.”

 

“Yeah, that’s always the fun part for this shit.” Dean grumbled. “I’ll look in on Mrs. Baker, stop by pretending to be a security consultant or something.”

 

Sam nodded, giving him a tired look. “Thanks, Adam, you did great. Better than could have been expected.”

 

He smiled a bit, shrugging. “Family business, right?”

 

Sam laughed a little. “Yeah. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

 


	4. Shit Happens

***  
  
Dean came back after an hour, flopping down on the bed after getting himself a beer. “Got anything? Cursed ground, something? I got Helen and her baby to go stay with the aunt who raised her, but we know if she’s been picked that might not matter.”

 

Sam shook his head. “Nothing, they never recovered any evidence of what happened to either mother, or the other little girl. There was one thing, with the boat case. One of the kids were missing. A girl, Joni.” Sam frowned, passing a picture over. “She was three years old when it happened, they figured she must have fallen off the boat.”

 

Dean grimaced, leaning his head back. “So three cases, all with missing people involved. Great. Think they’re still in the house?”

 

He sighed softly, doodling in the margins of one of the reports.

 

“Probably, maybe. I don’t know.” Sam shook his head. “Nothing in the history of the house before the first…incident. The brother reported that his sister was on the ceiling and that she started the fire.”

 

Dean scowled. “You think this was him?”

 

Sam looked down. “It fits the…established pattern. It could be that the first killings were legitimate insanity.”

 

“And then once dad popped his cork, he had changed the environment.” Dean sighed. “Thought we were done with this shithead.”

 

“Yeah, well. Maybe she wasn’t considered strong enough?” Sam chewed on the end of his pen, watching Dean, glancing over at him from time to time. “We going in?”

 

“I hate the hard way.” Dean muttered, covering his head with an arm.

 

“Well, we’re out of options for the easy way. This thing kills every ten years. This time it reached out and grabbed one of the people that got away the first time.” Sam grimaced. “We need to figure out what we’re dealing with. The only way we know is if we see it work for ourselves.”

 

He watched his brothers, making another small trap symbol in the corner of his notebook.

 

***  
  
Keeping watch while the only people who had existed in his universe in a very long time were trying to get a spook to try to kill them was not all it was cracked up to be.

 

He was sitting in the driver’s seat for once, key in the ignition, engine purring beneath him. He had told Dean honestly that he couldn’t really remember how to drive, and even if the car was standard, he wasn’t sure if he could steer it in the right direction.

 

But Dean had insisted, if the situation got hot they might to bail quickly, and him sitting in the driver’s seat gave them a better chance of getting away clean.

 

He thought that Dean might be trying to psych him up for driving, but he couldn’t be sure and he didn’t really want to find out.

 

He watched the house, drumming his hands on the wheel, watching the lights in the house and ducking down a little every time someone walked past with a dog.

 

But they tended to walk their dogs, and their kids, on the other side of the street. He’d watched at least three joggers cross the street, and then cross back once they were past the house.

 

It was weird. Even the stray cats seemed to avoid the place.

 

He glanced at the house again, but there was no change in the lights.

 

One of the joggers put the car between them and the house, peering inside and then trotting on without stopping.

 

He watched the man go, frowning, and gave the house another long look.

 

Something definitely wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He checked the lights again. Two in the upper story, one in the lower, he’d been in that room. The same as they’d been since Sam and Dean had gone into the house.

 

Someone knocked on the window, and he startled, staring out it at the curious jogger.

 

He hesitated, then rolled down the window a crack. “Yes?”

 

“You with the security company?” The woman asked him, frowning.

 

He nodded. “Mrs. Baker asked us to come put some security lights in. I guess my coworkers are having trouble getting it into the fuse box.”

 

The woman adjusted her jacket, shaking her head a little bit. “You be careful.” She told him, glancing at the house before she went on. She gave it several looks before she rounded the corner.

 

He reached for his phone, texting Sam about it.

 

He waited a few moments, but there was no response from his brother.

 

He eyed the house again anxiously. Two up, one down.

 

Nothing had changed.

 

Was that what the problem was? It should have changed, shouldn’t it? He should have seen his brothers passing in front of lights and moving around the rooms as they checked the house.

 

He checked the news on his phone.

 

What was he missing?   
  
He sifted through the local news, still nervously checking the house every few moments until he found a story related to Mr. Baker. Daniel. “Throat slit in the shower.” He whispered, and then looked nervously up at the house again.

 

So it was active enough to still kill, and it had killed.

 

He dialed Sam’s number, even though he had told himself he wouldn’t.

 

It went to voicemail. He tried Dean with the same results.

 

He checked the house again. Two up, one down.   
  
“Shit.” He whispered, unable to keep his hands from shaking. “Shit.”

 

He had to tell them, and they might be in trouble, but he had no idea what to do. His only really option was to go inside.

 

He nervously fingered the gun full of salt rounds Dean had insisted he keep on him, and patted the wheel of the car.

He had to. So he would.

 

He might be safer, maybe. Because of Michael. Sam and Dean had a lot going for them, but he had a fucking Archangel riding around in his skull.

 

That wasn’t reassuring at all.

 

He turned off the car, pocketing the keys on reflex, and climbed out, slowly walking to the door.

 

It opened at the slightest touch, not even properly closed.

 

***  
  
There was a little girl standing in the living room, her back turned to him.

 

He hesitated for a moment, glancing at the pictures that had been there that morning. The frames were still there, but they were all empty.

 

“Are you Joni?” He asked quietly, that was the only name Sam had given him. He knew there were other candidates, but he had to try.

 

The girl shook her head, turning to face him slowly.

 

Her face was a mess of scars, burns eating away at her jaw and the bones beneath it. Her eyes were gone.

 

He blinked, and the injuries were gone, and there was just a girl staring at him. “Margaret.” He said quietly, not knowing where he’d gotten the name. “Hello.”

 

He walked forward slowly, kneeling down next to her. “It must have been nice for Helen to come back.”

 

The girl closed her eyes and shook her head. “Helen got away from it.” She said softly. “It always wanted her back, but she was just strong enough to keep it from taking her.”

 

He frowned a little. “What is “It”?”

 

Margaret was silent, staring at her hands. “Do you want to meet It?”

 

He hesitated, fingering the gun in his pocket, but some instinct told him not to use it. “I’m looking for my brothers. You may have seen them. Tall guys, kinda loud.”

Margaret looked at him for a moment. “The one that took Helen away again, and the other one.”

 

He settled his hands on his knees. “Is that how it sees it?”

 

She nodded, tugging on the edge of her shirt. “It wants to punish them.”

 

“It’s a bad thing.” He said quietly, and impulsively reached for her hand. “You’re scared of it too, huh?”

 

The little girl nodded slowly. “Do you want to go to it?”

 

He hesitated, nervous. “I think I have to, don’t I? If my brothers are there.”

 

She gave him a shaky little smile. “I can take you there.”

 

“Thanks.” He stood up, still holding her hand in his own. “Are you able to leave here?”

 

She nodded. “But I don’t. It sends Daddy. It always sends Daddy.”

 

“To…take care of the people that escaped?” He asked, uncertain.

 

She nodded quietly. “Sometimes they try to get away, or people take them away.”

 

“Like they get arrested for doing what It wants them to?” He asked quietly, letting Margaret lead him to the basement door.

 

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “Sometimes It punishes the people who took them away.”

 

“Are you all still here?” He asked, quiet. “Everyone who has died here or vanished?”

 

She nodded. “I was the key in the lock. The first death. It loves me for that, so I have more…freedom.” She smiled a bit at the dark stairs. “But I’m afraid of it.”

 

“Do you know what it is?”

 

She shook her head. “I prayed for someone to come to take us away.” She whispered.

 

He twisted his lips. “Yeah, well, maybe we’re what you prayed for.”

 

He wasn’t sure that Michael would help here, but he knew how to push buttons.

 

Ye though I walk, or however that verse went.

 

The basement was breathing, the walls throbbing with life and energy humming through it. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

 

Margaret shivered next to him. “Do I need to go with you the entire way?”

 

“If you need to stay here, I can walk the rest of the way alone.” He knelt next to her on the stairs, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of this.” He tried to make his voice sound more confident than he felt.

 

Margaret put her arms around his neck, hugging his tightly.

 

He tried not to shudder, but she was so cold in his arms. “I’ll make sure you get out of here, Margaret.”

 

She nodded against his shoulder, stepping back and away from him with a little sigh.

 

He reached out, tousling her hair gently out of some instinct he couldn’t quite trace. “Trust me.”

 

She smiled, it was a tortured little thing, but it was there. “I’ll pray for you.”

 

He echoed it. “I appreciate it.” He continued down the stairs.

 

***  
  
The basement wasn’t really a room anymore, the edges were not defined.

 

He was in the world that belonged to this thing.

 

He scanned the room, looking for any sign of his brothers.

 

His head stopped moving, and his hand flexed against his side. Michael had never held the more traditional angel blades, instead his appeared as a massive sword at his side. The angel lifted his head, letting him see through his own eyes, but not move them.

 

“Show yourself.” The angel ordered, the Enochian ringing out in the room.

 

The monster did, a graceful, white form with mouths on its hands instead of on its face. “You have no power here.” It whispered.

 

Michael sneered, stepped forward, and drove his sword through the creature.

 

It burned, and it screamed, and other voices screamed with it.

 

He wanted to shudder, but Michael didn’t react to it at all.

 

It screamed, and others screamed.

 

The fire was spreading, gouts of it licking at the walls. The flesh burned away, revealing his brothers and two little girls. And bones, bones contorted and twisted in the pits on the wall. One of the little girls started crying at once, hands tangling in her hair.

 

Sam moved towards her, giving Michael a look that bordered on insolent. Michael took it that way; anyway, he could feel it. But he was focused on the evil spirit he was dealing with, and so Sam got a pass for just the once.

 

There were bones, too, flames licked at them, burning them away.

 

Ashes to ashes, he thought, and tried not to hope too hard that he hadn’t been lying to the little girl.

 

Michael withdrew his sword from the flaming thing, glancing at Dean.

 

“Guess it didn’t need to keep the women alive.” Dean muttered under his breath, stepping away from the flames, picking up the smaller girl as he did so.

 

“No. It would not need to.” Michael said, lazily watching the walls. “Here there is no time; the children’s energy could sate it through the lean times. You it would have consumed.”

 

“So it was eating their energy?” Dean asked, rocking the tiny child against his shoulder.

 

“It feeds on fear, on the darkest part of the human soul. This is its nest.” Michael banished the sword from his side. “Come, it will burn with holy fire. If you do not leave, you will burn with it.” Michael turned them towards the stairs, walking casually.

 

“Did you drag Adam in here?” Sam demanded, still holding the sobbing girl.

 

“If you must know, your brother followed you into the house of his own violation.” Michael told Sam with a little sneer. “I arose only when he placed himself into the maw of the beast. I do not appreciate being summoned for such tasks.”

 

“Yeah well, thanks for showing up.” Dean grumbled from behind them, making little shushing noises as the little girl in his arms.

 

It was hot, he could see it in the air, but he couldn’t feel it beyond Michael’s grace. It seemed to be holding it back, from himself, and his brothers, and their two tiny burdens.

 

What would happen to the little girls? He wondered. Michael returned the question with flat disinterest.

 

The children were their problems.

 

The front door was wreathed in flame by the time they reached it, the knob red hot and burning.

 

Margaret was waiting for them by it, her smile bright.

 

Michael slowed, and then stopped, coming to a knee beside her. “I am what you prayed for.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “You have suffered long enough.”

 

She smiled. “Thank you.”

 

“Rest now.” He touched her forehead, and she vanished into a plume of light.

 

Michael gave the place where she had stood a satisfied smile, and stood, continuing out the door.

 

He let go of him on the lawn, soon enough that he could turn and watch the house go up in flames.

“You ok?” Sam asked quietly.

 

He nodded, still watching the house as it burned.

 

The flames licked out around the doors, black smoke boiling out of holes where the windows had once been. “I think he killed it.” His hands ached, and the muscles in his hands an arms were cramping, but he thought he could hold himself up for just a little bit longer.

 

“Let’s get these two in the car, figure out our next move.” Dean said quietly, still watching the house. “Adam, you got the keys?”

 

“Yeah.” He answered dumbly, reaching into his pocket for them, following Dean’s progress back to the car.

 

“Good save back there.” Dean barked over his shoulder. “You did good.”

 

He grimaced. “I took too long. I knew something wasn’t right.”

 

Dean caught his shoulder with a clout. “You came, you figured it out. Good job.” He adjusted the little girl on his hip, rocking her a little bit.

 

“What do we do with them?”

 

Sam was still holding the crying girl, whose face was covered in blood. “Probably call Jody, work out something to get them to stay there.”

 

“Does she need a doctor, Sammy? This one is fine.” Dean pulled open the back of the Impala, grabbing his blanket and wrapping it around the toddler. “You stay right here, ok? Me and my brothers are going to get you somewhere safe real quick.”

 

The little girl nodded, sniffling and hiding her face in the blanket. “I want my mommy.”

 

“I know.” Dean told her gently. “We’ll do our best.”

 

“You sit up front.” Sam told him, sliding in the back of the car with the other little girl. He was using his shirt to put pressure on her face, crooning soothing things to her.

 

He nodded dumbly, crossing the last few steps to the car door, managing to pull it open despite the sudden spasms in his hands.

 

“Muscle relaxers are in the glove compartment, kid. Sammy?”

 

“Stitches, probably. But we can work that out when we stop.” Sam responded finally.

 

He fumbled for a movement before Dean reached over and opened it for him, taking the bottle out and screwing off the lid as they pealed away.

 

“Seat belts!” The toddler cried, scrambling for hers.

 

Dean chuckled. “Good job, princess. Sammy, you got them both?”

 

“Yeah.” Sam responded, sounding distracted.

 

He took the small handful of pills, trying to lock his jaw and avoid a true fit, just to keep from scaring the little girls more.

 

***

 

He slept most of the way to Jody’s, head pillowed against Dean’s jacket.

 

The little girls had stopped crying at some point, and from the groggy look Sam gave him when the car stopped, he wasn’t the only one that had blacked out.

 

The woman met them at the driveway, still leaning on crutches. “Ok, so I got most of the story or at least the gist of it over the phone. Lets get them inside and cleaned up.”

 

Dean picked up the sleeping toddler, letting Sam carry the older girl. “This is Joni, and this over here is Sammi, they’ve both been through a lot already.”

 

Jody smiled. “Cute. Well get them settled. You know the way.” She nodded back to the house, then turned her gaze to him. “So you’re Adam, huh?”

 

He nodded, still holding himself up on the door a bit.

 

“You’re quieter than your brothers.” She observed.

 

“Yeah, just wait until the pain meds make their way out of his system. He’ll chat your ear off about law enforcement.” Dean winked at him.

 

He grinned faintly, trying not to slur his words too much. “I’m a heavy sleeper.”

 

Jody nodded, offering him her hand, which he took and gave it a little shake before he dropped his own back to his side.

 

“Didn’t know they had another brother.” She said thoughtfully.

 

He grimaced. “I’ve been…” He trailed off, not sure how to explain. “It’s been awhile.” He settled on.

 

She gave him another long, thoughtful look. “Well don’t let Claire bowl you over or use you as leverage, ok?”

 

He nodded a bit. “Who’s Claire?”

 

“Have you met their angel friend?” Jody asked.

 

He shook his head. “Dean mentions him occasionally, Cass? Castiel.”

 

Jody nodded. “His vessel is Claire’s dad. It’s been hard on her. She also wants to be a hunter, and Sam and Dean keep telling her to focus on school – which I am very glad of, let me tell you. We get enough trouble here without looking for it.”

 

“So how would I be leverage?” He asked, pushing the door shut and making his unsteady way up to the house.

 

Jody smiled. “How old are you? 18? 19?”

 

“Twenty.” He thought, anyway. Twenty going on twenty million it felt.

 

“You’re not much older than she is, and you’re running hunts with those boys.” Jody smiled a bit. “Alex lives here too, so don’t let either of them push at you.”

 

He nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

 

“Those brothers of yours will eat me out of house and home, I’m sure you’re just as hungry.” Jody gave the house a look, shaking her head a little with apparent fondness.

 

 

***  
  
They stayed with Jody for a few days, long enough for Sam and Dean to get false birth certificates and false paperwork from the middle of nowhere Kansas that declared the girl’s legally Jody’s.

 

Sammi needed thirteen stitches on her face, it was going to leave a pretty bad scar, but she seemed oblivious to it now. She ran and played in Jody’s backyard with Joni, laughed and let Alex pick her up.

 

Alex had at first seemed a little uncertain of either girl, but had quickly warmed to the idea of them.

 

Nobody in the town had questioned Jodi, and he didn’t think anyone would in the long run.

 

Claire was another story, she had spent their first night there scowling at him intensely, and the second night arguing loudly with Sam. She hadn’t talked to him directly, but he had figured it was only a matter of time.

 

“Angels suck, huh?” She said, flopping down next to him on the steps.

 

He didn’t say anything, rubbing his hands against his jeans, staring out into the dusky light.

 

“Sam told me you had one riding you too. Like my dad.” Claire flicked a lighter, and he almost expected her to pull out a pack of smokes. But either she wasn’t actually a smoker, or she figured Jody would skin her and Sam would burn the bones.

 

Sam had some weird dislike for cigarettes, especially menthols. He hadn’t expected his brother to have a weird little quirk like that, but he did.

 

“Yeah.” He said, finally, keeping his hands on his legs.

 

“He anything like Castiel?” She asked.

 

He shrugged. “I haven’t met him yet.”

 

“That’s a shock, he and Dean are pretty damned tight.” Claire flicked the lighter again, scowling at the darkness. “So you’re Sam and Dean’s new baby brother and the newest member of the Winchester hunting team?”

 

He closed his eyes briefly, letting a sigh escape him. “My last name is Milligan; it’s my mom’s name and I intend to keep it. I don’t know how new I am, I feel old to my bones, and I’m not sure they count me as a partner or a project.”

 

She gave him a look. “But they take you on hunts?”

 

He shrugged. “I mostly stay in the car.”

 

She furrowed her brow. “You let them leave you in the car?”

 

He gave her another helpless shrug. “I was in premed. Before all this. I was going to be a doctor. Not…” He trailed off without anything to fill in the pause, looking down at his hands. “Now I’m a mess, and Sam doesn’t trust me to boil water if he leaves me alone.”

 

Claire was quiet, still fidgeting with the lighter.

 

“I know you think that hunting will fix you somehow.” He told her quietly. “That it will give you something you’ve lost. But I’d give anything to be back in Windom with my mom, as stupid as that little town could be. I know – Sam and Dean, as much as they understand hunting – if they could have had childhoods and had their mom back, they’d do anything for that too.” He gave her a weak smile. “Jody seems really nice.”

 

Claire flicked the lighter again. “She is.”

 

“So why do you want to hunt?”

 

She shrugged. “Hard to go back to sleep when you know the monsters under the bed are real, you know? I just want to….do something in my life that matters.”

 

“You think Jody’s life doesn’t matter?” He asked.

 

She scowled. “That’s not what I meant. Sitting at school, it seems really stupid when everyone out there is fighting a dying against monsters.”

 

He folded his arms. “So you learn how to fight, you learn how to think. Become better than the monsters, learn to trap them, and learn how to patch people up when they’re hurt.”

 

She looked at him, frowning. “What about you?”

 

“When I figure out how to interpret the growling of my stomach as a sign that I should eat and Sam lets me out of his sight for more than an hour, I’ll let you know.” He gave her a little smile, trying to remember a time when he was charming and able to do things like this. “If I tried to go back to school right now – disregarding the fact that I am legally dead – all that would end up happening is I’d starve myself on accident and have a panic attack if I looked in a mirror at the wrong moment. I’m not fit for normal.” He tilted his head. “Maybe you don’t think you are either, but you have a chance.”

 

“Sam said something like that.” She shoved the lighter into her pocket, squeezing it tightly until the tendons on her arm stood out.

 

“Sam’s pretty smart.” He said, quiet.

 

“What was it like? Hell? Castiel has told me a bit about Heaven.” She stared at the ground between her feet.

 

He bit his lip, sucking on the flesh of it for a second. “Hell is well, hell.” He said, finally. “I wasn’t in hell proper, so I can’t speak for that. But the cage was...it was every bad day you’ve ever had, every mistake you’ve ever made, every consequence of every action, every loss, every sadness. It was all of that, at once.” He grimaced. “I used to keep a list of…ways you could die, rate them. How much pain it caused, how long it took. It wasn’t a healthy.” He laughed.

 

Claire was staring at him, thoughtful. “How long were you down there?”

 

He shrugged. “I try not to think about it.” He could do the math if he really wanted to do it. But he wasn’t sure his sanity could take it.

 

“Castiel said that Heaven was peaceful, that it was the best day of your life forever.” Claire said slowly.

 

It had been so long since he had been in heaven, he wasn’t sure that he could scrape up the details. “I think it was like that.” He whispered. “I think I remember it being like that.”

 

She closed her eyes, bobbing her head a little. “Thanks.”

 

“For what?” He asked, confused.

 

She shrugged. “Just-thanks. Accept it.”

 

He snorted. “Ok. You’re welcome.”

 

She got the lighter out of her pocket again and started flicking it.

 

He watched her for a little while, and then turned his gaze back to the sunset.

 

***  
  
Sam came to check on them about fifteen minutes later. Claire looked at her cell phone and started laughing, pausing to ruffle his hair before she went inside.

 

“What was that about?” Sam asked curiously, turning to watch her go.

 

He shrugged, though he thought he might laugh too. “Girls.”

 

Sam gave Claire another look, then settled on the step next to him. “Good talk?”

 

He shrugged again. “I’m not trying to get myself invited to her bedroom, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

 

Sam snorted, shaking his head a little bit. “That might reassure Jody.”

 

“Yeah? She worried I might go after one of them?”

 

Sam laughed, lazily tracing a shape on the step. “No, that one of them might decide to go after you.”

 

He snorted, shaking his head a little bit. “I think that would be weird. Claire seems to think of you guys like male authority figures.”

 

“And nobody knows what Alex thinks.” Sam shrugged. “Jody was just watching for it. They’ve been through a lot.”

 

He nodded. “Claire- she’s sort of upset that you take me along. Wanted to know what made me different.” He closed his eyes. “She asks a lot of questions.”

 

“She does. You ok?”

 

He nodded a little bit, rubbing his hands on his jeans. “It just feels weird to talk about some of that stuff. Like I’m breaking some code of ethics. “Nobody talks about the cage” or something stupid like that.”

 

Sam snorted beside him. “Yeah well, Dean and I do.”

 

He gave his brother a doubtful look. “Before or after I popped out like the ghost of Christmas present?”

 

Sam looked down. “After. But we are still talking about it, so don’t feel like you can’t if you need to.”

 

He picked at a thread on his sleeve. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

 

“Most stories start at the beginning.” Sam suggested. “But you can start wherever you need to.”

 

He snorted. “We were all there for the beginning. I was an idiot, Zachariah was a lying snake, you and Dean got out of the room, I was too slow, Michael came down and that’s the end of that reunion party.”

 

Sam winced, touching his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

 

He shrugged. “It happened, and it was a very long time ago.” At least it felt like a very long time ago, in earth time it was only a few years. He rubbed at his face.

 

“Still. I’m sorry we didn’t get you out of there.” Sam repeated, giving his shoulder an awkward squeeze.

 

“Good intentions.” He smiled, but it felt strained and tiny. “The longer I’m here – the longer I’m awake, the more it all seems to be draining back into my head. Like I open my eyes and it’s all I can see. Mom, school, everything.” He whispered. “The way Michael is putting me back together feels all wrong, like the edges just don’t want to hold. I hate it, but I can’t do anything to stop it.”

 

Sam closed his arm around his shoulders, squeezing him tightly.

 

He released a shaky breath. “Sorry.” He whispered.

 

“Don’t be.” Sam responded, rubbing his shoulders.

 

“I feel like I’m ungrateful. Like when I wake up angry, it’s for things that happened so long ago they shouldn’t matter. But they do.”

 

“You have every right to feel angry for what you got dragged into, Adam. For what we dragged you into. Every bit of it.” Sam held him tightly, voice soft but firm.

 

“I don’t feel like I have the right to it. I just want to grieve, but I can’t, because I’m just angry all the time.” He balled his hands up against the knees of his jeans. “When Dean stabbed Zachariah, I thought that would be enough. That’s the end of it, right? But nothing ended there except for him, and I hate him for that. I hate that he got to get out of it by dying. I want to bring him back and stab him a few more times so he understands just a little bit of how I felt.”

 

Sam was quiet, letting him talk, arm comfortable and settled around his shoulders.

 

“I hate that Dean got out, and that I didn’t, when he’s the one that called Michael down.” He whispered, finally admitting to the secret.

 

“I know.” Sam responded. “I feel that ways sometimes too.”

 

He looked at Sam, feeling like he’d exposed a wound, expecting to be savaged, only to be soothed instead. “You do?”

 

“Yeah. All the time.” Sam told him, quiet. “He talks about hell sometimes, about how first he was tortured and then he got up. And I want to scream at him about it, to scream about what Lucifer put me – us – through. That the cage is not what he imagines it was.”

 

He nodded, looking down at the ground between their feet. “What do you do?”

 

“Hold it until I need it. Hold it until I need to get angry, to lash out at someone who deserves it. Probably not healthy, but it calms the storm for awhile.” Sam admitted.

 

“Until you get reminded again.” He said softly.

 

Sam tightened his arm around his shoulders. “You never forget, but you can focus it.”

 

He squeezed his eyes shut hard, leaning into Sam. “I just want to forget it, Sam.”

 

“I know, Adam. I know. But it’s not worth the cost of forgetting.”

 

He stayed against Sam’s side, mulling that over, letting it trickle into his mind and over the savaged bits of his own soul.

 

He couldn’t forget, he couldn’t resist. There were a lot of things he couldn’t do.

 

But he could do his best and put himself together in the best way possible.

 

 

***  
  
He checked over his shoulder to make certain his brothers hadn't left, even though he knew they wouldn't. They were still at the table in the corner, leaned over their notes.   
  
The line was longer than it had looked when he'd gotten up to get coffee, but it wasn't intolerable. The woman in front of him looked like she was having a much worse time, dragging a toddler and an infant around with her. The baby had started sobbing, and the toddler had screwed up his little face and planted his butt down, refusing to move from his spot.   
  
He abruptly found himself kneeling down, waggling his fingers in front of the little boy's face until his tear filled eyes were focused on him. "It's not that bad, is it?" It was his voice, but he hadn't even thought the words.   
  
He wanted to make a face, and shoved some colorful thoughts in Michael's direction, but fell back mulishly without resisting.   
  
The little boy clutched his knees, nodding his head miserably.   
  
The woman was still dealing with the infant, who was screaming his head off.   
  
"What is it?" Michael asked with surprising gentleness.   
  
"Daddy's sick, and mama plays with the doctors and my sister, not me." The boy told Michael sadly, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.   
  
"I bet that's not fun for your mommy either, is it?" Michael asked gently, offering a hand and helping the little boy to his feet, stroking his hair with an absent hand. "Doctors aren't much fun to play with."  
  
The boy shook his head. "Daddy is really sick." He repeated.   
  
Michael remained in his crouch, tilting his head slightly. "You have been very brave, haven't you? While your father was in the hospital."  
  
The boy nodded, chewing on his lip. "Says I gotta because Raine needs me to be a big brother."  
  
"Ahhh. I'm a big brother too, it's a very big job." Michael smiled at the child. "I know your mommy wouldn't ask that of you if she had any other choice."  
  
The boy nodded, looking at his mother, who was still juggling the baby and trying to avoid the looks of disgust from the other patrons.   
  
Michael made a little gesture with his hand, the smallest surge of grace that made the baby stop mid cry and peer around, on the verge of laughing rather than crying.   
  
The woman turned around, looking for the little boy, and stared at Michael for a long moment. "Gabriel." She said, slowly.   
  
Something in Michael flinched a little, but he gave the woman a little reassuring smile. "I saw that you had your hands full, so Gabriel and I were just having a chat while you dealt with that."  
  
She gave him a tentative, though exhausted smile. "I shouldn't have even stopped, but I haven't slept in three days. I'm running on coffee at this point, and he needed breakfast."   
  
Michael picked up the little boy, standing to face the woman with a reassuring smile, reaching out to touch her elbow and guide her to the counter. Nobody protested the line jumping, not even the clerks. "Gabriel tells me that his father is very sick."  
  
The woman sniffled a little, clutching her baby. "It's-they're-"  
  
Michael patted her elbow, making a soothing noise. "Take whatever time you need, I have nowhere to be." He nodded to the clerk when they pushed over the order, taking it and guiding the woman to an empty table.   
  
"They're talking about moving him to hospice. His-his liver is failing and he's not-with everything-they say it's just a matter of time." The woman said, dissolving into tears, clutching her baby in her arms.   
  
Michael smoothly put the straw into the milk for the little boy, handing it to him. "Do you have any family here, Taylor?"  
  
The woman shook her head, still sobbing intensely.   
  
He thought she should have noticed that Michael was using her name without being told, but he decided to let the angelic mind reading slide just this once.   
  
Michael kept making soothing little noises, even as he fed Gabriel his breakfast and kept the baby distracted from her own renewed sobbing. "This has been an incredibly difficult time for you, Taylor. I am sorry that you have suffered it alone."  
  
She shook her head, drawing a hiccupping sob and trying to talk, but her voice barely squeaked.   
  
Michael glanced at Sam and Dean, who were still talking about the case and discussing their next moves.   
  
<i>Don't</i> He tried to say, but Michael was ignoring him.   
  
"Let me drive you back to the hospital, you're in no condition to drive like this." Michael told the woman gently, still holding her son.  
  
"I would- I can't-" Taylor sniffled, grabbing the tissue that Michael offered and blowing her nose.  
  
"I insist, I wouldn't feel right letting you go on alone." He told her, just as gentle and patient. "Here, don't forget your coffee."   
  
She took the cup, looking helplessly at her son for a second, and then nodded miserably. "I'll pay for your cab."  
  
Michael waved his fingers reassuringly. "Don't worry, it's not far."  
  
He guided her out of the cafe without pausing to let his brothers know where they were going.   
  
He swore at the angel in several languages internally.   
  
***   
  
He knew what Michael was planning even before he led the woman into the hospital. For a being billions of years old, he was predictable once he started moving.  
  
Taylor walked like a ghost, clutching the car seat and her coffee like a woman too far gone in grief to even register where she was being led.   
  
Michael carried the little boy and held her by the elbow, correctly picking each turn and each floor that they needed to go to.  
  
There were people crowded around the room in the ICU, doctors and nurses packed around the door.   
  
Taylor finally seemed to register something was wrong, and Michael reached to gently take the car seat from her.  
  
She let him without protest, just like she had let him do everything so far. He was probably laying too much angel magic on her for her own good, but he guessed that at this point of the afternoon, she probably deserved whatever comfort she got from it.   
  
"What's going on?" She whispered, clutching her coffee in both hands. "Dr. Gordon?" She apparently didn't see the person she wanted, because she started trying to push through the crowd of people, who were surprisingly resistant to letting her pass until they realized who she was.   
  
Michael followed more slowly behind her, circling his hand slowly against the back of Gabriel's back. "Everything is going to be alright now." He told the little boy gently as they walked through the crowd.  
  
Gabriel leaned back to look at him, frowning a bit. "Are you god?"  
  
Michael laughed a little bit. "No. But I'm going to prove to you that He exists." He pressed a little kiss to the boy's head. "Go see your father, Gabriel." He sat the boy down, accepting the one look back with a little encouraging nod before the child ran into the room.  
  
The man on the bed was still hooked up to a number of machines, his wife clutched in his arms, tears streaming down both of their cheeks.   
  
Gabriel walked slowly forward, and Michael walked behind him, setting the car seat on one of the empty chairs.   
  
"Daddy?" The little boy asked softly.   
  
"Gabe!" The man stood up from the bad, causing some of the machines to scream, and scooped up his son.   
  
Michael smiled, self satisfaction washing over him, and turned to walk out of the room, parting the crowd of nurses and trailing fingers heavy with grace along the walls.   
  
It burned him, but the burns healed as soon as they formed. It took him a little while to figure out what Michael was doing, except for burning him.  
  
He was healing people. He could hear the machines as they passed the rooms, he could see the people in waiting rooms startle as the waves of grace passed over them and through them.   
  
<i>Why?</i> He asked, finally, quietly.   
  
Michael knelt down in front of a little girl whose head was covered in a little wrap, smiling at her and extending his hand to take her own. There were little bits of grace woven into an illusion of peace and serenity, inspiring complete faith in those who saw him. It would mostly be the patients, he thought. The nurses walked by as though they were there.   
  
The girl returned his smile, and together they drew a little picture on one of her pages. "Are you an angel? My mommy says they take care of people."   
  
Michael touched her head fondly. "I am."  
  
She smiled at him again, and gave him the picture.   
  
"Thank you." He told her gently, slipping it into a pocket. He smiled at her for another moment before he stood, resuming his pacing of the halls. He was tender with the children, which shocked him. He had been locked in hell with the angel, and tender was rarely a term he would even apply to Michael. Michael was fury and rage, movement and energy, malice and hatred. Michael was not kind. But here he was kind, he would take hands in his own, or sit and pray with someone as though he was not answering their prayers. He would listen to whispered hopes with gravity and kindness, and answer fervent pleas for release with a brush of his lips over knuckles, or the ghost of a smile.   
  
He encouraged prayers, in that strange way of his. He encouraged peace; guided hands along beads, guided lips through old chants that he was sure hadn't been whispered in thousands of years.   
  
"Tonight, nobody dies." Michael finally whispered in answer, after hours of pacing the halls. "Not here."  
  
He couldn't really figure out where the angel's mind was, which was nothing new, but this time there was so much power humming through him that it made his skull ache.

He still didn't understand when he caught a passing thought, directed outwards with all the fervor of a prayer. <i>Are you watching, Father?</i>  
  
  
***

He woke to Sam shaking his shoulders, curled up on a hotel bed with only dim memories of arriving there. Michael had taken something, he remembered swallowing and then curling up in the bed.

He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, or how long they had spent on Michael's walk of the hospital.

"Where were you?" Sam asked, clearly seeing the dim awareness on his face.

"Check the news." He slurred, without much of a better answer. "Probably on there."

Sam frowned at him, glancing up at Dean who picked up a remote, turning on the TV.

"-Really no explication for it. People who were dying are perfectly healthy; anyone in the hospital who was even remotely ill no longer has any trace of the illness." Someone was saying eagerly. "It's God's will."

Sam swore, dropping him on the bed.

He curled up a little, wanting to sleep.

"We have to go. Shit, shit, shit." Sam was still swearing, pacing around the room, shoving things into bags. "Get the bags, get him in the car."

He squinted blearily at Dean, hoping for an explanation. But Dean looked just as alarmed as Sam did.

"He chooses NOW? When we've got Amara on our ass and Lucifer is kicking around? What the hell?" Dean asked.

He shrugged. "There was a kid." He tried to explain, still feeling foggy headed and exhausted.

"Talk later, car now. It's on the news, which means either of them could be here at any point. Amara could smoke the whole town." Sam said, shoving his bag at him and pulling him into a sitting position. "Michael - impulse, great. Charity, awesome. Mass healing of the sick probably needs to wait until after we've dealt with the darkness."

"I don't understand." He mumbled, swaying a bit.

"Ancient evil out of a cosmic box, likes to suck souls out. Michael may have just called her out." Sam pulled him to his feet, guiding him to the door. "Or Lucifer,"

"Lucifer's out?" He asked, stumbling a bit and trying to hold onto his bag. His muscles felt rubbery and weak.

"Yeah, he is. He's riding one of our friends." Dean growled behind him, pulling the door roughly shut behind them.

 

Michael was a hot prickle of outrage in the back of his mind, but did nothing more than that.

 

He let Sam herd him into the car, sinking into the back of the Impala with a tired groan. He just wanted to go back to sleep. Dean tossed a few bags in with him, and shook out his blanket to cover him up.

 

"Clean?" He shouted at Sam.

 

"Clean!" Sam responded, throwing himself into the passenger seat of the Impala.

In all, he thought it might be around ten minutes from them waking him up to the Impala pealing out of the parking lot.

 

He dozed for the next few hours, listening to the low murmured conversation in the front of the car, letting it fall away into background noise.

 

When he woke next, Sam was grabbing the bags to haul into the Bunker and he was starving.

 

It was an unsettling feeling, his stomach gnawing at itself, rumbling and demanding sustenance.

 

"I'm hungry." He mumbled.

 

Sam paused, staring at him, then smiled slowly. "You are? We've still got some waffle mix and bacon, I can make some?"

 

He nodded, weaving slowly to his feet, tucking the blanket around his own shoulders like a cape and making his way inside.

 

Dean was working on something already in the library, so he just staggered into the kitchen, flopping into a chair.

 

Sam came inside a few minutes later. "He's hungry." He told Dean, something like pride lingering in his voice.

 

Dean glanced at him, a slow smile breaking out over his face. "That right?"

 

"Yeah. I'm going to make some food." Sam told him, dropping the bags on one of the tables.

 

"Make enough for me too, the last thing I had was coffee this morning." Dean told him, still typing away on the laptop.

 

"We really need a maid." Sam sighed, tousling his hair slightly as he passed.

 

He gave Sam a dim, sleepy smile, still holding the blanket around his shoulders.

 

"You feeling alright?" Sam asked as he started mixing things, clearly not as focused on the domestic tasks as he was pretending.

 

Dean brought the laptop into the kitchen, grabbing them all a beer before he flopped down into one of the battered kitchen chairs.

 

"Tired, hungry, a bit foggy. But otherwise fine." He responded, aware that he still sounded a bit slurred.

 

"Did he really hit the entire hospital?" Dean asked absently, taking a drink of his beer.

 

He nodded, pulling the blanket a bit closer. "He even prayed with a few people."

 

Dean frowned a bit, but cleared the expression before it really settled on his face. "Ok, next question: Why?"

 

He shrugged. "People were losing faith. He-well, it started with this toddler in the coffee shop. Reminded him of his littlest brother. Gabriel?" He got a little nod from Sam, confirming it, and so continued. "His father was dying, so Michael took them to the hospital and healed them. But it-there were so many people begging for help. So he just- I guess answered prayers?"

 

Sam shook his head a little bit.

 

Dean hit a few more keys. "He couldn't have stopped at a few **miracle** s? That sort of thing draws a lot of attention."

 

He wrinkled his nose. "Couldn't most angels do that?"

 

"Not anymore." Sam said quietly, putting a plate in front of him. "Things have changed since Michael was in Heaven, the angels were damaged."

 

He ignored the words for a moment, focusing on the food and the fact that his stomach felt hollow. Self sustaining or not, Michael made him exhausted and hungry.

 

"Most of the major news cycles have picked it up, a lot of energy is getting focused in that direction. Some whisper of the Pope visiting." Dean muttered, clicking around. "No weird weather reports yet, but..."

 

"Yeah. She might still be recovering." Sam blew out a breath, returning to the stove and the waffle maker.

 

"Our choices are pretty limited, barring any other interference. No noise on any Hands Of God."

 

"Lucifer might just poke around." Sam glanced at him, watching him eat with a satisfied look on his face.

 

He couldn't quite make sense of the way Sam was watching him, but he was too hungry to really stop and ask him about it.

 

"So what do we do?" Dean asked.

 

"There's nothing we really can do. All we can do is wait." Sam answered quietly, piling more food onto a plate and giving it to Dean.

 

He swallowed what was in his mouth. "What are "Hands Of God" and why are you looking for them?" He asked.

 

Dean gave him a look somewhere between fond and suspicious. "Is that you asking or Michael?"

 

He took a swallow of the beer. "I think a little bit of both, but I think he knows the answer to the first part. He's-" He made a sort of helpless gesture. "He's paying attention, and he wants to make sure I know he's paying attention, so it feels a bit like he's looming behind me."

 

Dean glanced past him to the space behind his chair reflexively. "Ok, well. Hands of God are artifacts touched by God that hold remains of his power. We're hoping that we can use one of them to defeat the Darkness."

 

He soaked up syrup with his forkful of waffles, shoveling it into his mouth, chewing on the food and swallowing it.

 

Sam sat down next to him, sticking close. "So far the one we found was used up."

 

He screwed up his face, chewing and swallowing and taking another bite without offering any input.

  
***  
  
He woke with a start in his bed, in the pants and beat up t-shirt that might have been Dean's that he'd gone to sleep in. But Sam was gone and there was something not right about the room.  
  
"Sam?" He sat up slowly, fumbling for the knife he knew Sam kept under the pillow.   
  
It wasn't there.   
  
"Dean?" He called, feeling more alarmed by the second, letting his feet touch the floor and feeling his heart pick up speed in his chest. "Anyone?"  
  
"Sorry, better if this little meeting doesn't have any weapons." An unfamiliar voice chirped behind him. "Family business, I'm sure you understand."  
  
He turned to stare at the man sitting in Sam's chair, uncertain. "Who are you?"  
  
The guy affected an injured look. "You spent hundreds of years with my brothers and they never mentioned me?"  
  
He shrank down a little bit, leaning away. An Archangel. He bit down on his lip, trying to wake himself up.  
  
"Whoa, whoa. Hey. Sorry." The guy held up his hands. "I'm the nice one. I helped your brothers, name's Gabriel."  
  
He shook his head, still shrinking down.   
  
"Ok, so they never mentioned me either. Nice to know I was missed." The guy ran his fingers through his hair for a few seconds, seeming to ponder a solution to the problem for a little while. "You have to be one of the least needy mortals I've ever encountered. No vices. What's up with that?"   
  
He licked his dry lips. "Couple hundred years in hell?"  
  
Gabriel snorted. "Winchester sarcasm intact, nice to see. Alright, kiddo, I don't really need you, but you and Michael sort of come as a package right now. So I had to bring you along. But don't you worry, neither of my brothers are going to hurt you while I'm here. Though they might hurt me." He seemed to only half be joking, which was not reassuring.   
  
He stared at him, pressing his hands between his knees.   
  
"Yeah. I bet you heard that one before. Ok. On your feet, you and Castiel can hang out while the three of us chat." Gabriel gestured, and then presented him with a fluffy bathrobe. "I hope I can still appeal to creature comforts."  
  
He accepted the garment warily, wrapping it around his arms, but obediently stood. He wasn't up for arguing with an archangel. "Aren't you dead?"  
  
The angel waved his hand. "Ask my publicist. Questions later, walking now. Come on." He waved to the door.  
  
He took a deep breath and braced himself, stepping out the door of the construct into the hallway of the bunker; he turned automatically towards the quiet sound of noise in the kitchen.   
  
Gabriel trailed him there, clearly almost as uncertain even if he was trying to hide it behind an unhealthy level of bravado.   
  
"Why are you doing this?"   
  
Gabriel made a face. "Same reason your brothers haven't kicked mine out of you, kiddo. Bigger picture. The darkness is bad news." He sighed softly. "Maybe bad enough news to fix things." He sounded wistful, which was odd. "I miss them. Luci and Mikey and Raph. I miss dad too, the people we used to be."   
  
He wrinkled his nose a bit at the cute little nicknames.   
  
Gabriel grinned, motioning for him to step into the kitchen.   
  
Dean's angel friend was sitting at the table, messing with a TV set and appearing disinterested in anything going on around him.  
  
Lucifer was lounging in the corner, spinning a bottle cap lazily. His gaze fell on him at once, a slow, dangerous smile curling his lips before he caught Gabriel and something almost genuine broke free. He jumped from his seat, crossing the floor in half a dozen steps to sweet Gabriel into a hug. "Brother!"   
  
He shuddered and moved quickly to the only seemingly neutral party in the room. Castiel looked up at him, frowning slightly. "Adam?"  
  
He nodded, burying his fingers in the soft cloth.  
  
Castiel turned slightly to regard the hugging angels. "I thought you were with Michael?"  
  
He chewed on his lip. "I-" Was? Am? He wasn't even sure what to say. He felt as small and battered as he'd felt lying in the hospital bed when he'd first gotten out. He looked at the floor instead, not wanting to look at anyone or deal with everything going on around him. He was trying to blot out Lucifer's voice, the way he had pulled up Gabriel's shirt to examine him, the way he seemed genuinely happy to see the guy.   
  
It was unnerving and uncomfortable.   
  
Castiel was watching them rather than his TV, head tilted slightly to the side with a curious sort of interest on his face. "How is it that Gabriel is here? Am I dreaming?"   
  
He shrugged rather than answer, twisting his toes against the dirty linoleum. He wanted to be back in bed and no longer part of the package deal.  
  
"Gabriel?" His father's voice was soft and confused, with only a slightly dangerous edge to it.   
  
"Mikey! Look, we've almost got the entire gang back together." Gabriel called, trying to pull his shirt down and push Lucifer back slightly. Lucifer was ignoring the attempts to reclaim a personal space bubble.  
  
Michael frowned at the pair of them, looking around the kitchen. His gaze only briefly settled on him, but he still shrank closer to Castiel in response, trying to avoid notice.   
  
"Where is Raphael?" Michael asked quietly, seeming more puzzled than concerned.  
  
Lucifer and Gabriel exchanged a quick look, then both turned to Castiel as though they had already discussed the matter. "Castiel, why don't you tell Michael about Raphael!" Gabriel said, too casual.    
  
"He's dead." Castiel stated flatly without looking up.    
  
Michael looked like someone had hit him with a train. "What? Dead? When?"  
  
"Ohhhh. Two years ago?" Gabriel winced. "You were sort of...otherwise...detained. He...um, well. You know Raphael." Gabriel looked at Lucifer, clearly asking for help, but Lucifer only held up his hands. "Right. Uh. Ok. So a lot of stuff happened and we probably need to go over it..." Gabriel muttered.  
  
"The darkness has escaped her imprisonment due to the actions of the Winchester brothers and threatens the world." Michael said flatly. "All other concerns are clearly secondary to the preservation of Father's will. She must be restored to her prison as soon as we are able to gather sufficient power, our attempts will be limited by the pitiful force that Heaven seems able to muster and the lack of Father's presence and Raphael's."  
  
Gabriel drooped. "Yeah, that about covers it."   
  
Lucifer draped his arm around Gabriel, leaning most of his weight on the smaller Angel. "So does that mean we're getting the band back together, brothers?"  
  
Michael gave him a contemptuous look. "Neither of us are at full power, and I doubt Gabriel escaped your attack unscathed."  
  
Lucifer wiggled his fingers. "Details."  
  
"Pertinent details. It was a costly battle when we were one and together." Michael snapped. "When we had Father to stand behind us."  
  
"Dad left some things behind." Lucifer argued.   
  
"And how many are already drained of their power?" Michael retorted, glancing at them again-at him, almost as though he was debating moving the conversation away from him. "They are limited in number and power, unreliable and costly. We cannot depend on suspended fragments of power."  
  
"Well unless Dad left you his forwarding address, we kinda don't have other options." Lucifer said, sounding bored already.   
  
He shrank down smaller, trying to scoot his chair closer to the very limited protection he thought Castiel might be able to provide.

 

"Ok, let's try to stay on task and not start fighting in the first four minutes." Gabriel said cheerfully. "Granted, I love that we've been in the same space for four minutes and the only one who looks like he's about to keel over is the kid."

 

Michael gave him another look, this time Lucifer joined him, smirking at him from over Gabriel's shoulder with a familiar edge of glee.    
  
Castiel was still watching them with a faintly dreamy look on his face, which meant that he had solidly zero help from that direction. He wondered if kicking the angel in the ankle might get him some sort of result, or if he should try retreating back to the room. He shuddered without meaning to, trying to make it seem like he hadn't seen them.    


Gabriel looked immediately contrite. "And let's now stop looking at the kid like he's next on the menu, brothers."

Lucifer smirked. "Oh we've had that dish, little brother. Over and over and over again." He purred, and then belatedly looked away. "How healed would you say you are?"

Michael shrugged. "I have been attempting to knit myself back together."

Lucifer finally unwound from Gabriel, sauntering across the room like he owned it to put his hand against Michael's forehead.

Michael held his ground, but there was a full bodied twitch that said he'd considered other options. Michael was not as together as he was pretending.

The nasty look that thought got him told him that Michael could still read his thoughts, and the full bodied chuckle from Lucifer said he wasn't alone. "Kid's right. You're a mess." He patted Michael's cheek. "I prefer you talking in complete sentences, though."

 

Castiel looked at him curiously. "Are they talking about you?"

 

He kicked the angel in the ankle, despite his bare feet, hands white knuckled on the bathrobe.

 

It took what felt like a full minute for the angel to frown at him. "Why did you do that?"

 

"Stop drawing attention to me." He hissed.

 

Castiel looked at the other angels again, frowning a bit, then looking at him again.

 

"They are delusions caused by Lucifer, not reality. Just as you are."

 

Gabriel put his hand to his face with an audible smack. "What did you do to him?"

 

"Oh he's fine. I've not touched him." Lucifer responded, fully dismissive and still mostly focused on Michael. "He's being a good little soldier for the cause. Is that better? You were well enough for an entire hospital, but nobody was charging you with a weapon."

 

"I am able to fight." Michael told him, sounding irritated.

 

Lucifer gave a little chuckle. "Brother, I do not need you able to fight; I need you able to win. We are down one brother and Father as well."

 

Michael sighed, looking skyward for a moment before giving his head a shake.

 

"Better, yes."

 

Lucifer gave his face another pat, and stepped back giving Gabriel a sidelong look before he walked over to the table, resting hands on his shoulders. "How's my second favorite Winchester? Are Dean and Sammy treating you ok?"

 

He tried to shrink away from the hands, but Lucifer was applying enough pressure with the outwardly gentle touch that he couldn't move.

 

"Still their least favorite but at least they're talking to you now, huh? Kinda hard to forget about you when you're riding around in the back of that car of theirs?"

 

Lucifer squeezed his shoulders, too rough for it to be anything close to a massage.

 

He squirmed, but knew better than to openly fight and finally just screwed his eyes shut and made himself go limp in the devil's grasp.

 

"Luci, lay off the kid." Gabriel said, voice firm. "He's here because he has to be."

 

"Oh I know." Lucifer purred behind him, giving his shoulders one last rub. "But I like it when he's around. Adam and me, we've spent a lot of quality time together."

 

"The darkness? End of creation? Can we focus?" Gabriel snapped his fingers and he was abruptly not being held by the devil, but sitting in the basement of his old house, his favorite movie on the TV, a giant bowl of popcorn in his arms and every light in the room on. Castiel was sprawled in the battered recliner, headphones over his ears and watching a laptop.

 

He looked around the construct, mostly confused. About halfway through the movie, he gave up on bracing himself for whatever came next and just curled up to watch. The movie obligingly started over for him, and when he got bored with watching that one, put on whatever he wanted to watch next.

 

It took Castiel what felt like a very long time to pull the laptop screen down and stare at him.

 

He shifted on the couch, blanket pulled up to his chin and watched the angel in return. The TV switched to a recording of Sam's voice telling him Star Wars.

 

"You're really out of hell." Castiel said quietly.

 

He nodded, fidgeting with the blanket.

 

"How?" The angel asked with a small frown.

 

He shrugged. "I woke up on a road."

 

"A road? That seems strange." The angel stated without any inflection.

 

He snorted. "I thought so too."

 

Castiel tilted his head. "And you still contain Michael?"

 

He looked down rather than answer, staring at the battered fabric on the couch.

 

"That was insensitive." Castiel said after a moment. "You are with Sam and Dean?"

 

He wrapped the fringe of the blanket around his fingers, giving a small nod.

 

"Good. That is a good place for you." Castiel said, still frowning faintly. "You seem more stable than Sam was when he regained his memories. Are your memories intact?"

 

A little laugh bubbled up in his chest, but he swallowed it back down. "Yeah. They are."

 

"I see." Castiel studied him for a longer moment. "Was that truly Gabriel?"

 

He shrugged, then jerked when a door slammed upstairs, shrinking down into the couch cushions.

 

Castiel tilted his head to look up. "What is it?"

 

"Michael." He whispered, tightening his hands to conceal their trembling.

 

Castiel dropped his gaze to him. "You're frightened. Will he hurt you when he finds you?"

 

He shrugged, grimacing and shrinking down as much as he could when the door at the top of the steps swung open.

 

Michael gave Castiel a bored look, reaching down and pulling him off the couch by the back of his shirt. "Your brothers would be extremely disappointed in me if I left your soul in one of Gabriel's constructs."

 

He tried to twist away from Michael's grasp on the back of his shirt, and saw out of the corner of his eye that Castiel had started to get up before the safe comfort of the basement vanished for a sterile, white hallway he didn't recognize, Michael inches from his face.

 

He tried to flinch back, but the wall stopped him, and Michael's arms and the weight of his body kept him from escaping in any other direction.

 

"Don't." He whispered, but Michael ignored him, kissing him roughly against the wall.

 

He shuddered, but Michael ignored that too, lazily extending the kiss until he thought he should be passing out from lack of breath. But this was his mind, and he had learned long ago that his mind could ignore any rule.

 

"I am the reason you still exist." Michael told him coolly, not withdrawing enough that their skin no longer touched, remaining ruthlessly present. "I am the reason you are able to laugh with your brothers, and sleep next to Sam. You should be grateful. If I let the full force of your experience touch you, then you would be a gibbering mess in the corner of a psych ward. But you are mine, and so I have chosen to give you this freedom. I can take it away."

 

He turned his head the bare fraction he was able, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop the tears that were welling up. His chest ached. "Please just let me go." He could take it, he hoped, he thought. He would work through it. Somehow.

 

Sam had.

 

"I am part of you." Michael told him, cradling his face in his hand. "You will never escape me."

 

He felt the tap against his mind, and his knees buckled before the memory even bubbled up, mouth open in a soundless plea.  
  
Michael ignored him, body pressed against his.

 

***  


He twisted beneath his hands, pressing his palms flat to the ground, trying to buck the angel off. His mouth twisted in a frustrated snarl when it didn’t work.

“Is that fear?” Michael hummed above him. “Fear again after all of these years?”

He bared his teeth. “Let me go.”

 

Michael smirked slowly, pressing two fingers to the side of his head.

 

His world filled with blooms of agony, his body twisting and twitching against the pain that cut through him. He screamed. He screamed until his throat bled, until he tasted blood, until he couldn’t scream and his jaw felt sore.

 

The pain stopped abruptly, leaving him sore and curled on the ground beneath Michael’s weight, panting for breath and still seeing stars.

 

The angel tisked about him. “You’ve bitten your tongue.” The grace burned when it healed him.

 

He tried to jerk away, but Michael clearly wasn’t done with him yet. When he realized he wasn’t going to be allowed to escape, he laid still, trying to present himself as an uninteresting target.

 

“Did you enjoy that?” Michael asked, smoothing idle hands over his back, digging his fingers into the knotted muscles around his spine.

 

He focused on breathing.

 

“It isn’t over as quick as you want it to be, is it?” Michael crooned with a voice heavy with pretend sympathy.

 

“Fuck you.” He rasped, making another attempt to push himself up.

 

“Of course, it is not only pain that I can cause.” Michael crooned.

 

That was a terrible feeling settling over him, something like dread, though he thought he had moved beyond that.

 

Michael brushed his fingers against the back of his skull, leaning and lipping at his ear in something that might have been intended to be gentle.

 

It made his stomach clinch, because it meant Michael was going to try to pretend that he wanted this. He wasn’t sure which he hated more, when Michael used him and left, or when Michael tried to pretend that it was a thing.

 

Probably the latter.

 

He twisted himself beneath the angel, trying to swear, but instead he was overrun with bliss. He gasped out a single cry, Michael still crooning nonsense in his ear, whispering stupid things that would normally make his skin crawl off his body and find succor in death.

 

It didn’t stop, just built like a wave, crashed against some unseen shore, and rose again to overwhelm him.

 

Michael undid his belt carelessly, watching him writhe on the ground, unable to control his body.

 

“Don’t.” He managed to gasp out, only to get a cold smile as Michael seized him and the pain returned.

 

Pain. Pleasure. Pain. Pleasure. Pain and pleasure bleeding together until his brain couldn’t make sense of where one started and the other ended. It had nothing to do with physical sensation; it had nothing to do with the sliding of Michael’s flesh over him, within him. It just was. Pleasure, pain, pleasure, pain, pain, pain, pleasure. He couldn’t predict it, he couldn’t prepare for it. He screamed and he cried and he fell apart and when Michael finally, finally left him, he didn’t get up.

 

He couldn’t. It felt like his brain was still trying to read the intense over experience as something that made sense. He felt filthy and sore, and torn right down to whatever vital bit of him had kept him moving this far.

He wanted Sam, but Sam was gone, and he was alone.

  
***

A hand shook his shoulder and he reacted, wild with remembered agony, twisting his body impossibly fast to pin the body the arm was attached to, fingers aiming for the throat.

 

The body went still beneath him, but he held on, breathing rough and ragged.

 

"Sam?" A voice said from behind him, worried, possible threat.

 

He growled, tightening his hand, turning to glare at the door.

 

"Whoa, kid. It's alright. It's just us." The man held up his hands, showing that he wasn't reaching for the gun on his belt.

 

The person beneath him was still, not struggling against his grasp at all.

 

"Sammy's going to pass out though, so why don't you loosen your grip a little." The man said, still gentle.

 

He looked down at his attacker, frowning slightly, trying to put the name and the face and the sense of familiarity into context.

 

"Yeah, that's it. That's Sammy. Your brother. Remember?" The man's voice was still gentle, patient.

 

The man had a hand half blocking his hold, keeping some air flowing into his body, preventing his choke hold from being entirely effective.

 

"Adam." The man said, raspy and a little bit labored.

 

He blinked, adding that to the pieces he had. He could adjust his hold, and choke the man out, and then risk the fight with the other one alone.

 

He let go instead, slinking back to the end of the bed, trying to keep them both in his line of sight.

 

The one on the bed held up a hand to motion the other one back, but otherwise didn't move.

 

"Adam." The man on the bed repeated. "It's alright. You're safe."

 

He raked his fingers through his hair, laughing a little. Safe? No. He was never safe. He had never been safe. This was an illusion.

 

One of them was Michael, one of them was Lucifer, he was not safe. They were just trying to confuse him.

 

"What happened?" The man standing asked quietly.

 

"Nightmare?" The other one suggested, slowly sitting up, showing him his hands.

 

"Adam. Adam what did you see?"

 

He bared his teeth, hand still buried in his hair, body curled as small as he could make it.

 

The one on the bed glanced at the other, something seemed to pass between them and the other one abruptly sat down on the floor.

 

The one on the bed echoed his gesture, running his fingers through his own hair.

 

"Don't laugh, Dean."

 

"If you start singing I might not be able to help it." The guy on the floor responded.

 

The guy on the bed took a deep breath, closed his eyes briefly, and started to talk. Well, started to tell a story. "We open on a snow planet, a lone rider watches something crash to the planet. He reports it to his base, and guides his beast towards the site, intending to uncover what landed on the planet. The air is bitingly cold, but the rider is well dressed to protect against it." 

 

His body relaxed automatically, some of the tension just melting out of his as the first notes of the story washed over him, head dropping to his knees and eyes closing. A part of his mind was just listening; the rest of him was trying to reorient himself, to adjust to whatever this was.

 

Midway through the story, he started to cry, first softly, and then in low, body shaking sobs. He could almost feel Michael dragging the fog back from his mind, enhancing his grasp on reality in subtle ways until he knew where he was and who these people were. Until the night before slotted into the life he had been leading.

 

Sam paused in the story telling, reaching forward tentatively to rest a hand on his shoulder.

 

"Sam." He whispered.

 

"Yeah, we're here." Sam said gently, and used the hand to guide him forward, rubbing his shoulders as the sobs took away any ability to speak.

 

Dean got up from the floor, sandwiching him between them.

 

He buried his face in Sam’s side, snot leaking from his nose as he sobbed. He wasn’t a great crier, and it felt like ages since he had managed to cry at all.

 

Dean lifted one of the small blankets he had dragged to Sam’s bed over the months he had been there, tucking it gently around his shoulder, rubbing his back slowly.

 

Neither of his brothers spoke as he sobbed, but they kept touching him in gentle, insistent ways and refused to let him forget that they were there.

  
***

 

There was some part of him, some small, besieged and tattered part of him that wanted to be small again. That wanted to be small enough that he could just be picked up and held, reassured until the fear that filled him had ebbed.   
  
That part of him also wanted his mom, as much as he appreciated Sam's willingness to soak up his tears and sit with him for as long as he was crying without complaining.   
  
Dean had left a few times, and come back with random things. Tissues, bottles of water, socks, aspirin. He watched Dean sit on the floor and pull the socks on his feet with something approaching apathy, still tucked against Sam's side as though he was half his current size and more easily cuddled.   
  
Dean finished with the socks, and handed him the bottle of water again, cap removed for easy drinking.   
  
He drank without resisting.   
  
Sam rubbed his shoulders, tightening his arm a bit as though to remind him he was still there.   
  
"You shirt is gross." He finally managed to croak out, voice raspy and raw from the sobbing. The sound of it nearly made him panic again, but he felt Michael's irritation and the sharp jerk at his mind that kept the panic from manifesting.  
  
"Yeah, it's fine." Sam muttered, looking at Dean.   
  
They had another one of their short, silent conversations over his head, and Dean left again to get something.  
  
He turned his head a bit to watch him go, sniffling.   
  
Sam handed him another tissue.   
  
"I'm hungry." He mumbled, after blowing his nose. "Can we get a pizza?"   
  
"Sure. We can get whatever you want. Pizza, beer, beer pizza." Sam suggested, trying for levity and failing.  
  
He tried to laugh, but it was too strained to really be anything more than another sniffle. "You'll have to change your shirt. Maybe take a shower."   
  
Sam snorted. "I think just changing the shirt will be fine, and if I don't it'll dry."  
  
The attempt to act normal was wearing him out, he wasn't sure how long he could maintain it.   
  
"You wanna talk about it?" Sam asked, finally, quietly.   
  
"No. I don't want to think about it either." He whispered, twisting his shirt in his hands, looking down.  
  
"Was it a nightmare?" Sam asked, carefully.   
  
He shook his head. "It was a memory." He laughed, and it had the faintly unhinged edge he could remember in some dim corner of his mind. "Stupid."  
  
"You're not stupid." Sam told him firmly. "Just like your anger, you're allowed to have this, Adam. You're allowed to cry and grieve for...well, everything."  
  
He shook his head again, holding his hand out and staring intently at the fingers. At the skin stretched taunt over muscle and bone, at the veins that crisscrossed the back of his hand like a map to something long forgotten. There was a faint, healing bruise in the curve of his thumb, he'd pinched it in the kitchen drawer and hadn't even noticed.   
  
Sam was quiet, watching his hand with a sort of curious concern on his face.  
  
He turned his hand over, looking at the skin of his palm. Remembering something from grade school about figuring out who you were going to marry and how long you were going to live. "I wonder where in here is the Vessel part." He mused to himself.   
  
"Nowhere." Sam said quietly, reaching out and folding his fingers over his palm, and then holding the fist he had made gently in his own hand. Sam's hands were huge, and he had always thought he was a pretty big guy.   
  
"Somewhere. It's written somewhere in me, probably in Enochian somewhere." He was still watching his hand, aware of how flat his voice was, how completely removed he felt from the discussion. "I wanted so bad to believe it could be over."  
  
"It will." Sam said, giving his fist a little squeeze.   
  
He looked up at his brother finally, trying for a smile. "The only reason I am sane enough to have a conversation and not just try to break your neck is because Michael is holding back all of the parts of me that went completely insane in the back of my mind." The words were completely emotionless, his voice didn't even shake.   
  
Sam frowned. "Is that what he told you?"  
  
He looked away. "That's what he showed me. He took away his support, so I could see what I really was." Just a tool, just a vessel that Michael was indulging with this playing pretend.  
  
"So we work from that." Dean said quietly from the doorway. "You think Sam was all together and ready to fight monsters when he got out of hell? He wasn't. We worked through it. We'll work through it with you too. So Michael can take his ass and get the fuck out."  
  
He dropped his head, closing his eyes tightly. "You don't understand I-he." The lump stuck in his throat, choking him, silencing him.   
  
Pain. Pain. Pleasure. Pain. He never knew which one it was going to be next, he never knew if the hand that reached for him would caress him or send him into waves of agony he couldn't make stop even when he beat his head against the floor. If he injured himself, it would be healed. If he killed himself, he would return. There was no escape, not even into death. He was nothing, but he was suffering.   
  
Sam tightened his arm around his shoulders, saying something he couldn't hear over the rush of blood in his ears.   
  
Dean had moved at some point and was kneeling in front of him, snapping his fingers in front of his face.  
  
He tried to focus on the sound, tried to latch onto the motion as 'reality', but it was a struggle when Michael was trying to overwhelm him. "Gonna vomit." He managed to gasp out.  
  
Dean shoved the trash basket into his arms just in time.   
  
He sagged over it as Michael casually built back up the internal wall.   
  
Dean gave Sam a look, jaw tight and eyes narrow.   
  
Sam was circling his hand against his back gently, looking just as angry.

"Michael, I know you're listening." Dean said finally, forcefully. "I need you to understand something, you sorry excuse for an angel. I've kicked one of you feathery bastards out of one of my little brothers before. I'll do it again. I won't even think twice. I will find a witch and send you back to hell alone, and you can go fuck yourself if you think I won't. The only reason you are here is to help Adam, and right now from my side of things you're not holding up your end of the deal." He paused, staring at him intently. "Way I figure, fuck the darkness. If it comes down to it, I'll take my chances with her, not with you."

 

He could feel Michael's sneer curling his lips, and if anything that seemed to make Dean angrier.

"Yeah, I know, stupid monkeys thinking they can boss you around. You've lived a billion years and I'll be lucky if I get fifty. Well we killed your brother, and we trapped the two of you down there. So trust me, you won't get to hurt him before I will cage your ass." Dean growled, leaning forward and dropping a heavy chain around his neck.

He flinched backwards a little, making a confused noise when it seemed like

Michael vanished from his perception.

Sam looked at it. "Quick work."

"Thanks. Been working on it off and on since he got back." Dean grunted. "We need him, we can take it off."

He touched the silver charm, running his fingers over the Enochian shakily.

"We used that shit to kick Gadreel's ass, so I figured it would at least hold Michael back." Dean explained. "Push him dormant and keep him from running off with you."

Sam gave him another squeeze. "You feel ok?"

He kept fingering it, confused and a little bit frightened that his brothers had apparently been planning for something like this. "How did you know?"

"That he would try something like that? He's an angel, most of them are assholes. "Dean explained, shrugging. "Food? Pizza?"

He nodded, still a bit shaky.

 

***  
  
Dean came back with a stack of Pizzas, laying them out like playing cards. “Got you pepperoni, got your sausage, got your cheese, got you everything, got your all meats, got your weirdo pineapple pizza, and I got your stuffed crust.”

 

He stared at the pile of food, blinking. “How much food do you think we’re going to eat?”

 

“Much as you want.” Dean said simply, wandering into the kitchen and returning with a six pack. “The rest will keep in the fridge.”

 

Sam glanced at him, waiting patiently for him to reach for whatever box he wanted.

 

He hesitated for another moment. “Which one is the meat?”

 

Dean smirked, and moved the pizza closer to him.

 

He opened it, and his stomach growled at him, the smell of hot cheese and fat and dough wafting up to him.

 

He ate two slices before he paused for breath, only to discover that Sam and Dean were watching him eat, both still working on their first slice.

 

When they caught him looking at them, they both looked down, resuming eating.

 

He took another slice, trying to eat a little bit slower this time, though he was still finished with it quickly and moving onto the next.

 

He was starving, his stomach growling for something to fill it.

 

He took a swig on the beer, taking several long swallows of it before starting on his next piece.

 

“The necklace is good work.” Sam commented.

 

Dean grunted, focused on his food. “There’s a few things around here that reference angels and angelic possession. Apparently they’ve trapped them before.”

 

He lifted his other hand to brush against the cool silver. “Thank you.” He whispered, looking down.

 

“Yeah.” Dean said, voice gentler. “Well.”

 

He twisted his lips a bit, trying to smile, and kept eating his pizza.


	5. Catching Fireflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it's just messy. You live with it, or you don't.

Life really was just the time between moments. Moments were the things that happened, life was the breaths, the downtime, the laughter, the road racing by between the towns, between the cases, between the injuries and the fear. It was listening to Sam and Dean bicker about the music, it was letting the air catch his fingers, it was waking up without remembering nightmares.

It was lunch and stealing fries off Dean's plate, and laughing when Dean gave him a wounded look. It was what he should have had growing up, it was all he wanted right now. If he could spend the rest of his life in the back of the Impala, watching the mile markers go by, listening to his brothers, he thought it would be a good life. It was so much less than he had ever thought he wanted, and so much more than anything else he'd had.

The cases were fine, he liked helping people. He liked doing the right thing, or feeling like they had. He liked living on top of his brothers, packed together in the car, packed together in the hotel room.

It was the wrong time to try to remember how to live. There was so much they needed to do, the Darkness wouldn't wait for him to figure out how to let go of things.

They needed Michael more than they needed him, but he was selfish and he was clinging to his freedom with every fiber of his being. Sam and Dean were selfish too. Selfish about each other, selfish about him, about Cas.

It was weird to find himself in the center of it, but nice. They never asked anything of him but to be their little brother. They could have asked much more. Maybe they should have, he didn't know.

"Don't." Sam gasped, clawing at his throat. "Adam, don't."

The chain bit into his hand as he clutched at it, Dean was swearing and looking between them like he was the one that was drowning and Sam wasn't dying, and he wasn't choosing between his freedom and Sam's life.

Which wasn't a choice, he knew it, but it still felt took so long for him to pull the chain off.

And it took no time for Michael to cast it aside.

His last thought was that maybe he was being selfish too.

***

He came back to himself in the bunker, an unfamiliar man sitting next to him, one hand cupping his cheek.

He jerked back reflexively, looking around quickly for his brothers.

Castiel was sitting across from him, arms crossed, face twisted into a scowl. "Welcome back."

The man pulled his hand away. "Hello, Adam."

"Where are my brothers?"

Castiel snorted - Lucifer, it was Lucifer, he remembered. "That Winchester blood runs strong."

"They're fine. Just upstairs." The unfamiliar man told him. "Are you alright?"

He worked his jaw, glancing uncertainly at Lucifer.

"It's alright. You can be honest. I know my sons haven't been kind to you." The man said patiently.

"What?" He said, not sure he had heard right.

"Daddy came back." Lucifer said, in a tone he now recognized as petulant. "His little Winchesters were in trouble again, so he had to ride in and save the day."

The man sighed.

He stared, feeling like someone had hit him. "You're god?"

"Yes." The man said, looking tired.

But he couldn't be tired, he was god. God couldn't get tired. "You-" He swallowed, caught Lucifer's smirk, twisted his hands into his shirt. "You-you let all of this happen."

"I gave you the power to choose." God said calmly. "If I meddled in everyone's lives, well."

"Choose? What choice? I didn't-" His lip was trembling. "I didn't _choose_ to die. I didn't choose from my mom to die. I didn't-" He had chosen Michael, sort of, he had said yes without knowing the full depth of what he was agreeing to. "I didn't _choose_ to get sent to hell."

"That was regrettable." God said.

" _Regrettable_?!? You _made_ that place!"

Lucifer had tilted his head back and was now openly grinning. "Yes, Adam, just let it all out. Spew it all over him."

"I didn't _choose_ to be so fucked up that Michael is the only damned thing holding me together." It wasn't a shout, he'd expected it to come out as a shout, but it came out as a whisper. Which seemed more damning, in a way.

God looked at him, eyes sad. "You have every right to be angry with me."

"You don't even understand why I am. I prayed to you." Still a whisper, barely a breath. "I _begged_ for you to save me."

"I know. I heard you." God told him, sad.

"Then why didn't you answer me?"

God looked away.

He ground his fists against his eyes, until he could only see spots of color. "Fuck you." He whispered, finally, slumping in the chair. His chest ached, and his eyes burned, but he had run out of things to ask, answers to demand.

"I am sorry." God said after a few beats of silence.

He drew his legs under himself, keeping his eyes tightly closed.

"'Sorry' sure looks like it did a whole hell of a lot of good, pops. Maybe you should try the old 'I love you' trick." Lucifer suggested, voice full of mockery.

"Fuck you too, Lucifer." He gasped out.

"Not helping." God said.

"Oh, hm. I wonder how that feels?" Lucifer responded. "Oh, yes. That's been the last few millennia for me. Huh! Weird."

"Lucifer." The warning was clear in the tone.

"The humans don't buy it, and neither do I. Michael might be ready to forgive, but fuck you. This happened because your response to any problem is lock it in a box and hope everyone else forgets about it too!"

"You're right." God said.

Lucifer drew a breath. "And-what?"

"You're right. I was too quick to lock you away. I should have tried harder to understand your position."

Lucifer was silent.

"But, son, I need your help now. I need Michael's as well. We're down two of your brothers. I need the two of you to work through everything between you and focus on what we built together."

He drew a shaky breath, risking dropping his hands. Lucifer was staring at the man, forehead wrinkled, clearly confused.

God looked at him, gave him a small smile. "I need your help as well, Adam."

"Why?" He rasped out.

"Because Dean can't, and Michael needs you right now." God told him gently.

"No." He whispered.

"I can't force you to do it." God told him, gentle, coaxing. "But I need you to do it."

"No." He repeated, levering himself up from the chair. "No." He looked at Lucifer, lip trembling, entire body shaking.

Lucifer shrugged slightly, leaning forward and cupping his chin in his hand, thoughtful.

"Figure something else out." He whispered. "You're-fuck, you're god. Use-" John. John could do it. His father.

He squeezed his hands shut, head going down. "No." He repeated, even though nobody had said anything.

God gave him a sad, quiet look. "We've asked a lot of you already. I forget how young you are."

It was so patronizing, so...

He really wanted to punch God.

He thought about Sam, gasping and dying, black veins spreading over his face. He thought about his mother, dead in a box. He thought about his father. He thought about Dean. He thought about the back of the Impala, and Castiel talking to him in their shared mental space. He thought about the cases, the ones that got to him, the ones that hurt. He thought about the Impala, the road rushing by outside the car, the world rushing by. It couldn’t touch them in the car. He ground his hands against his eyes, hating everything, hating God, hating Michael, hating Lucifer for looking so smug. He hated the knowing, knowing that as selfish as his reasons were, he had to do this. 

"Last time." He whispered. "Promise."

"Last time." God agreed.  
Michael rushed back into him, from wherever he had gone, and he knew nothing more. 

***

Waking up after Michael had been forcefully expelled from his body was sort of a ten on his mental pain scale.

"Adam?" Sam's voice was soft, concerned.

"Ow." He mumbled in response.

Sam laughed a little bit, slipping his arm under his shoulders. "Yeah, you hit the wall pretty hard. Anything broken?"

"Everything?" He questioned, letting Sam guide him to his feet. "Let’s go with everything, ok? Did we win?"

"No." Sam squeezed his shoulders slightly. "No, we didn't."

He sagged against his brother, lifting his other hand to his face, groaning softly. "What now?"

"Good question." Dean said softly.

Nobody seemed to have an answer, not God, who looked shaken and shaky on his feet. Not Castiel, who stood next to Dean looking worried.

Nobody knew.

It figured.

***

Goodbye didn't make any sense. It hurt, but Dean was trying to be jovial about it. Trying not to make it worse.

Not like anything could make this worse, this waiting for the world to end or his brother to die. He wanted to be with Sam, but Sam wanted to be alone, and he was trying to respect that. Trying to keep a solid grip on the here and now, since Michael wasn't holding him together anymore.

"Do you want to forget?" Chuck asked him softly, fingers tapping gently on his mug.

He lifted his head. "What?"

"Forget. Do you want to? I have enough juice left in me to make that a reality."

He stared at the deity, shocked by the question. "No."

"It's a lot of shit for a human to carry."

He looked away. "I'd forget the good shit too. Sam, Dean. The people we've helped. I don't want to forget....I just want to figure out how to live with it."

Chuck laughed softly. "Alright."

He frowned. "Wha-" It was sort of like a switch being flipped in his head, the white noise and burning years of hell suddenly fading into the background of his experience. He shook his head roughly, reaching up to rub his eyes.

"I merged a few duplicates. But the rest of it is all there. Just, manageable. Dealt with." Chuck told him, smiling weakly. "Better?"

"Yeah." He whispered. "Yeah, it is."

"Least I can do. Or maybe the most." Chuck glanced to where Dean and Sam were still talking. "I'm sorry I didn't write you into their lives sooner, I'm sorry that I took it all away from you."

He lowered his head. "I needed to...to figure out what I was missing." He twisted his fingers in his sleeves.

"Yeah. That's hard, huh?" Chuck smiled. "I'm glad you were here. It changed the story, maybe not in a big way. But enough. Enough to change a few outcomes."

He looked at Dean, standing from the table and walking to the door, into the weird not light of the broken sun. Dean reached out and pulled him into a hug, holding him tight.

Sam turned away, clearly crying.

"You take care of him, ok? He's an idiot." Dean told him.

"Yeah." He whispered. "I'll keep him in line."

"Make sure he doesn't wreck my car, ok?" Dean seemed really concerned.

He managed a small laugh. "Yeah. I'll drive it if he can't."

"Good." Dean lightly cuffed his shoulder. "Don't say yes to any angels. Unless they come from a Victoria Secret catalog. That's my brotherly advice."

Even Sam snickered at that.

"I think I'll draw the line at any angels, really." He wanted to say 'I'll miss you' or something like that, but he punched Dean's shoulder instead. "Where were you when I was 15 and needed that advice?"

"Kansas? Not sure. Ask me another time." Dean responded, casual, amused.

He rolled his eyes, gripping Dean's forearm.

Dean smiled at him, squeezed his shoulder, and then turned away, making his way to Castiel.

They spoke for a few moments, and then Dean was gone.

*** 

He didn't know what to think once God had vanished and the sun had come back. Sam had suggested they go home, and had pushed them to the car.

Cas had been quiet for the most part, but he had started talking before they made it all the way back to the bunker, clearly having thought his way through whatever was bothering him.

Sam drove, hands steady on the wheel, eyes hard on the road.

He didn't intrude, leaning against the window, watching the road go by and trying not to feel lost.

But it was hard not to feel it hanging on him.

"Home." Sam whispered, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder.

He grimaced softly in response, opening the door and heading into the Bunker. He'd just hit the switch when he saw her, barely got the first hint of Sam's name out of his mouth before pain hit him and he lost consciousness.

***

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, just that the blood on the floor was tacky and not liquid anymore, and his head was throbbing, and he was alone.

He'd managed to stagger into the kitchen, getting a pack of peas to soothe the lump on his head, trying to clear the spots from his vision, to figure out what he should do, when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

There was a curse, and then a familiar voice. "Sammie? Adam? Cas?!"

"Dean?" He came stumbling out of the kitchen, only to be seized in a hard hug by his brother. "Dean-what? I thought?"

"Where's Sam?" Dean asked, not letting go of him.

"I don't know. There was a woman in the bunker. She hit me with something, taser maybe, I blacked out and then when I came to they were gone. How are you...I mean? The darkness, the sun came back?"

"Yeah." Dean let him go a little, holding his shoulders. "Long story. I'm ok. The Darkness and God....went to couple's counseling, I think."

He frowned at his brother.

"You've got me. I was there, and I'm still confused."

"Adam?" A voice said softly from up the stairs.

He lifted his head a bit, then stared. "Dad?"

"Dean, what is he doing here? He was never supposed to get involved in this." His father was coming down the stairs, followed by a smaller blond woman who looked just as startled as he felt.

"Shit happened." Dean answered, curt. "Would have been nice to have a heads up, you know?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Why did you get him involved!? He's a fucking civilian!" John's voice went up a notch, barely less than a growl.

"He didn't. You did." He snarled, gripping Dean's arm. "You got us killed."

John drew up a step away from them, frowning.

"One of your hunts followed you home." He snapped. "They were trying to get back at you, killed mom, I called your phone, and Sam and Dean got there too late. It was your fault."

Dean gave his shoulder another squeeze, between him and his father.

"John." The woman's voice was calm. "Just stop. The boys handled themselves the best they could, you yelling without knowing the situation won't fix it."

"Mary-" His father started to say, but caught something in her eye. "Alright. I want the full report later."

Dean grunted, and they all jerked when the door opened and Castiel appeared at the top of the stairs, soaking wet.

***

He made coffee, which felt just a tiny bit ridiculous. But it gave him something to do while Dean and Cas discussed, and his father tried to awkwardly help with it.

He added whisky to the mugs before he brought them over, sitting them on the table in front of the people currently arguing.

His father glanced at him, offered a tentative smile, but turned his focus back to Dean.

Dean took a mouthful, gave him an approving nod, and went back to looking at the records.

He settled against the counter with his own mug, heard his father sputter when he took the first sip and shoot him a look that said a lot of things he didn't want to deal with right now.

"Alright. So. Cas, you do recon. Figure out where this bitch has Sammy, me and Adam will be in the Impala, mom?"

Mary had been staring at him again. "Oh-uh. Yeah. I can go with Castiel."

Cas nodded slightly. "Are you alright for this, Adam?"

"I'm fine. Better than ever." He flexed his arm, and Dean cracked a faint smile. "If I can handle the Darkness, I can handle some Brit Bitch who took my brother."

John was frowning again, faintly, gaze flicking between them. "Guess that means I'm with the boys."

"Mhm." Dean hummed, looking at him.

He returned the look, narrowing his eyes. If Dean thought for even a second that he was going to sit this one out.

Dean sighed, clearly relenting against his second thought. "Help me pack the bags."

He nodded, putting his cup down and following Dean out of the room.

"You a hundred percent?" Dean asked, once they were in the weapons locker.

"Probably more like ninety, but I can manage. The aspirin took the edge off." He pulled a bag down off the shelf.

"If it wasn't Sammy I'd ask you to sit this one out, you know."

He tossed Dean a look. "I've hunted with you before. I'm not going to stay out of this."

"Yeah but-" Dean sighed. "We just got you back."

"Right. And we almost just lost you for good." He shrugged. "Nobody here got promised forever. Unless you're implying that you don't think I can handle it without Michael."

"No. Definitely not. Glad that fucker is gone." Dean caught his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Just-let me know. Ok? If something rattles loose, let me know."

He rolled his eyes. "I'll tell you if you tell me. Asshole."

"Brat." Dean responded, giving his shoulder another squeeze before he went back to shoving things in a bag.

"So what's up with dad? How'd that happen?" He asked after a few moments of packing in companionable silence.

Dean sighed. "God and Amara decided to give a few gifts."

"Gifts." He repeated, deadpan.

"Gifts. We'll figure it out once we have Sammy back." Dean rubbed his forehead. "After I sleep."

"I can make more coffee." He teased.

Dean shot him a look. "Feel like bar tending more?"

"I thought it would help cool tempers."

"Dad's a mean drunk." Dean informed him. "Not sleepy like Sammy gets, or grumpy like I get. I don't know about mom."

"I'll keep that in mind." He glanced at the doorway, but they were still alone. "I'd never seen him like that. Was he always like that with you and Sam?"

Dean sighed again, shoved a length of rope into the bag. "We'll talk about it later."

Which mean yes. His father had always been a distant, indulgent figure in his life. Bought him his first beer, taught him to drive when he was fourteen.

Sam and Dean's father was a different person than the face John had presented to him during his brief visits.

He wasn't sure he was ready to meet that guy.

Dean lightly cuffed his temple. "Don't go wandering off. I need you sharp."

He batted the hand away, rolling his eyes. "Ass."

"Come on, brat. Daydream later." Dean shouldered his bag, and he grabbed up the bag he had packed, following his brother out of the armory.

***

He ran into his father, literally, as they both moved for the passenger side door at the same time.

John reached out to steady him, eyes full of concern. "Are you-"

"Adam, get the damned car." Dean barked from inside.

He pulled away from the touch. "Fine." He answered, then pulled the door and got inside before John could say anything else.

It took another minute for his father to get inside the car, and by then he had already dragged his notebook and the folded map he had been keeping track of their route out of his bag.

"You good?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." He mumbled, head down.

Dean sighed, seemed on the verge of saying something, but threw the car into drive instead.

They were all quiet after that, John settled against the window behind the driver's seat, watching him intently. Dean with eyes on the road.

He was trying to ignore the way that his father was looking at him, but was only partially successful.

He could be glad that John wasn't in his seat - the one behind Sam's, where Dean could check on him without taking his eyes off the road. But it was matched with the discomfort that he wasn't in his seat either, and neither was Sam.

He had no idea how long they drove for. He was having trouble with time even with Chuck doing something for the messed up interior of his brain. It could have been an hour, it could have been ten. It dragged, in a way life inside the Impala had never dragged before.

Dean finally stopped for gas, and came over to his side after he was done with it. "Going inside. Want something?"

He shrugged. "Candy bar? Soda or something, I don't know."

Dean nodded, giving John a brief questioning look.

Their father shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Stay in the car, ok?"

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. We all know how prone to wandering off I am."

Dean slugged him lightly in the shoulder. "Mind, brat. I've gotta chase Sammy down, I don't need to be looking for you too."

"Yeah yeah, go pee. We all know your bladder is the size of a lemon." He shoved Dean off, not missing the look he gave John before he allowed the door to shut again.

He watched Dean walk inside, trying to control his nerves. Great. So Chuck hadn't dealt with the part of him that was still a mess over new people. He kept darkening the outline of the devil's trap he had sketched, trying not to look at John.

He shifted after Dean had been gone for a few minutes, leaning his weight against the back of the bench. "So how long have you been with Sam and Dean?"

"A little while." He answered, grateful that his voice didn't shake.

"I'm sorry about your mother, Adam. I had no idea. I wanted to protect you."

He blew out a breath, narrowing his eyes and keeping them focused on the page. "Yeah, well. Good job."

John sighed, rubbing his face. "I know why you're angry."

"You don't. So don't pretend." He answered.

"I want to." John said quietly. "I was trying to do right by you."

He started to answer, but Dean jerked the door open and tossed a bag on his lap.

He gave his brother a dirty look, but started splitting out the items between them. "Ass."

"I got you the stuff, brat. Don't complain. Should have made you walk for it." Dean grumbled.

***

Sam was ironically more worried about him than his own battered self.

It irritated him, even as he understood it, that Sam had refused to acknowledge how badly he was hurt and had instead insisted on checking his head, on seeing the faint burns the taser had left on his chest.

Only then would he let him use the first aid kit to patch him up.

"You buy it?" Dean asked, leaning against the side of the car.

Sam snorted softly, foot twitching under his care.

"Sorry." He muttered, ignoring the way his father was looming on the other side of the car.

"Not your fault." Sam responded. "And no, I don't buy it. She's-they're insane."

He finished disinfecting the burn, wrapping the foot completely in bandages. "It's a weird time to show up."

Dean made a questioning sound.

"I mean, after all this time? You'd think if they wanted to have some grip...." He trailed off and shook his head. "They would have sent someone before now."

"Should have, maybe. It's been what - forty, fifty years?" Dean responded, looking at Sam.

"Dad was a kid when...well." Sam said, looking awkwardly over his shoulder at their father.

Castiel was leaning against the front of the car, face twisted in a scowl.

"When what?" John asked, puzzled.

"Your dad was one of them." Dean jerked his head back towards the house. "Or at least, the American chapter of it."

John frowned, but gave a small nod in response.

"So. We ignore them, we pretend we never met him, and we deal with her if she tries anything again? That what we're doing?"

He nodded slightly, closing the kit. "So what, we just go back to the bunker?"

"And take a nap." Sam suggested, touching his shoulder and squeezing it slightly.

He snorted. "And eat something. Dean's been feeding me snickers and RC cola, I'm starving.."

"I bought coke! You were fine, brat."

Sam laughed a little bit, though he still looked pained. "Got any juice, Cas?"

Castiel stepped forward. "I'm still recovering from Lucifer, but as soon as I am able I will repair the damage."

Sam grimaced. "It's good. Adam's patched me up. Just...wondering how you are."

Cas frowned for a moment, then his face relaxed. "I will be fine."

"Right." Dean said. "We'll get back, grab something to eat on the way." He glanced at Mary and John, who were both watching them. John was frowning, Mary look fascinated.

"I'll ride in the back with Sam." He offered, glancing between Dean and his father.

Dean nodded. "Good idea. Mom? Ride with us? Dad can ride back with Cas?"

John looked on the verge of protesting, but Mary was already walking around the car.

***

Sam was squeezed against him, arm around his shoulders, easily in Dean's line of sight.

It was a quiet ride until they were most of the way back, and then Mary spoke. "Why didn't you want your father in the car?"

"He road with us on the way here." Dean answered quickly.

Too quickly. He tried not to cringe for his brother. Mom's could spot things like that.

"We could have both fit in the back, you had John back there on the way here." Mary replied calmly.

"Sammy's injured." Dean responded.

Mary glanced back at them, gave them both an absent, but still warm smile. "Adam isn't. You haven't left John and me alone for more than a few minutes, Dean, and you clearly didn't want him in the car with Sam. What's going on?"

"Dad and I have a...." Sam trailed off, seeming to search for words.

"They get in fights when they're locked in small spaces together." Dean interrupted. "It's better if he rides with Cas."

Mary looked over her shoulder at him. "And before you were afraid I would question Adam."

Dean looked at him guiltily.

He shrugged. "You can ask me questions, I'm not as screwed up as they think."

Mary cracked a smile, then reached over the seat and offered him her hand. "Mary Winchester."

A slow smile crept onto his face, he took the hand and shook it. "Adam Milligan."

"Not Winchester?" She asked, curious.

"No. Mom raised me, dad was sort of in and out. It's her name."

Mary's face softened. "You said that she was dead, back at the bunker?"

He nodded, swallowing the unexpected lump in his throat. "Yeah. Pair of ghouls, few years ago. They were trying to get back at him, only he was already dead."

"I'm sorry." She answered, giving his hand a squeeze and then pulling it away. "I lost my parents to something too. It's not easy, even if you know about all this. So that means you didn't grow up with Sammy and Dean, or were they in and out like your dad?"

He shook his head. "I met them when I was nineteen. First year of med school." Then he elbowed Sam in the ribs when his brother leaned a bit too much on him. "You're smothering me."

Sam sighed.

Mary chuckled. "You three get along pretty well in spite of that."

He grinned. "We had our ins and outs when we first met. I kinda wish I'd known them as a kid, and then Dean leaves his towel on the floor in the bathroom and I remember how nice it was to be an only child."

Dean snorted. "Hey, brat."

"They're kinda assholes." He told Mary, though he knew his voice was fond.

She smiled. "I had a lot of cousins, growing up. It's the same, really. You live with someone long enough and you hate them as much as you would die for them."

He nodded. "We're not allowed to die for each other anymore, it got old a few years ago. Too over dramatic."

Mary laughed a little bit.

He looked pointedly at Dean.

Dean stared intently at the road.

Sam coughed.

***

He woke without remembering falling asleep to the smell of something that made his stomach growl, with one half of him warm and the other half numb from being pressed into the door.

"Awake?" Dean asked.

He grunted, closing his eyes again.

Dean laughed softly. "We're almost home, you and Sam crashed. We got food."

"A lot of food." Mary said, amused.

"We'll eat it, don't worry." Dean assured his mother. "Sam and Adam are huge eaters."

"Yeah, and you're so dainty." He mumbled.

Mary laughed softly, the Impala rolled to a stop, and Sam shifted, groaning softly.

"Hey sunshine." Dean said, cheerful. "How's your ribs."

"Fuck off." Sam replied, shifting the arm he had tucked around his shoulders. "Is that chicken?"

"Yep. Fried chicken, sides, pie. Mom insisted." Dean sounded almost chipper.

"Did she feed you coffee?" He asked, working feeling back into his hand.

"Nah. Just happy. Good day." Dean looked back at him, giving a brief smile.

He hummed, making sure Sam was sitting up before he moved to open the door.

John was suddenly just there, and he gasped in spite of himself, cowering back into Sam and being drawn into his brother's side, despite the probably broken ribs.

John froze, giving him a completely confused look. "Adam? What's wrong?"

He closed his eyes briefly, trying to force his racing heart to slow. Not Michael, not Michael. This wasn't anything like hell, it was just his father, his brothers were here, he was safe.

"Adam?" Sam's voice was quiet, worried.

"I'm ok. It's-It's good. I'm fine."

Sam held tight for a moment longer, then let him slither out of the car and around their father, entire body still shaking with fine tremors. Mary met him on the other side of the car, holding the bags of food in her hand, her other hand on his shoulder.

Dean was out of the car and heading for Sam, but seemed torn.

"Can you help me carry this?" Mary asked, offering him one of the bags.

"Yeah." He said, shaking his head slightly at Dean.

Dean frowned, and he felt a surge of guilt for killing his good mood. Dean had every reason to be happy, to rejoice in the return of his parents.

He was the one that was screwing things up.

Mary handed him two of the bags, and gently herded him toward the Bunker.

Cas gave him a brief look of concern.

He made an awkward attempt to smile, and let Mary herd him through the motions of setting up the meal while his father and Dean brought Sam inside.

Mary kept up the occasional bit of idle chatter, asking him about food.

"I like chicken. We eat a lot of pizzas, fast and easy to stack." He told her, mulling it over. "Burgers, too, when we're in hotel rooms. Dean likes bad diners, so we eat at those a lot. Since he's driving."

Mary chuckled. "I can't cook." She confessed. "When I was a kid, we were always on the hunt. So there was never much chance to work. Your father can."

"I can make casseroles." John offered, stepping back as Dean settled Sam into a chair. "Fry a few things. I used to grill, remember?" John asked, grinning a him.

"Yeah." He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Mom made potato salad."

"Kate could make pretty good potato salad." John looked at Mary, but Mary was smiling and didn't look at all bothered by it. "But she was a good cook."

"I probably would have liked her. Dean said she was a nurse?"

He nodded, staring down at his hands.

"Let's eat." Dean said, suddenly. "Sammy's starving, Adam seems to be too."

"Right. Right." Mary said, giving a rueful little laugh. "Dinner time."


End file.
